


All is Fair

by jilliancares



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: BOY does he have a lot comin his way, Dan doesn't believe in love, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Percy Jackson Universe, i'll explain everything as if you don't, oh and you don't need to know percy jackson to read this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-19
Updated: 2017-11-04
Packaged: 2018-12-17 08:49:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 38,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11848116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jilliancares/pseuds/jilliancares
Summary: Dan Howell has made many mistakes in life, the first of which was being born to Aphrodite (or maybe just being born at all, in his uncle’s opinion). It’s never made much sense that he was son of the Goddess of love, seeing as he didn’t even believe in it. Still, maybe there’s time for his mind to be changed when he finds himself going on a quest to retrieve his mother’s “Cupid’s bow” with Phil Lester, son of Ares.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> alright !!! new fic is here !! i'm excited about it so i hope you guys like it!!

“You ready?” his uncle grunted, shouldering open the door to his bedroom and regarding Dan with an annoyed look. He reeked of cigarettes, the smell permeating the room. Dan nodded.

He’d been ready for the past three days, seeing as his uncle had promised to drive him to camp three days ago. Maybe it shouldn’t have come as such a surprise when his uncle had made excuses as to why it had to be postponed—his paycheck had yet to come in and they had no gas money; he got called into work last minute; his favorite sports team was about to come on. He could manage to find an endless array of excuses if he so wished and Dan just sighed and left the room when he heard them. There was no point arguing—it would get him nowhere but in trouble.

“I’m ready,” Dan said quickly, sliding off the bed and scooping his bag from the floor before his uncle could change his mind. He’d been getting antsy these last few days, afraid a monster would soon sense his presence and come to attack him. He had a couple weapons around, a celestial bronze dagger shoved into his bedside drawer, but nothing like the weapons he usually preferred at camp. He liked to fight with a giant, celestial bronze hammer, usually—yes it wasn’t the most common of weapons, but it was what Dan was most comfortable with.

While everyone else darted around a monster, slicing at soft spots and stabbing at chinks in their armor, Dan simply waited for the right moment and smashed their head in with his warhammer—most creatures’ brains tended to be a soft spot, Dan had learned.

He sighed after settling into the passenger seat of the car, hugging his bag to his chest and looking out the window. His uncle grumbled under his breath as he started the engine, the car making a horrible churning noise for a few seconds before it kicked into life, loud and wheezing.

Going to camp was always the best part of the year. Sometimes Dan wished monsters bothered him more often so he’d have an excuse to have to stay there all year long. Instead, he always returned home at the end of the summer, his high spirits effectively crushed by the presence of his uncle and all the idiots in school. Still, he was grateful nonetheless. Any amount of time spent away from his home was good and he would take whatever he could get.

He’d lived with his uncle for most of his life. A few sparse memories of his father remained: afternoons spent watching tv with him on the couch, sitting on his shoulders as they walked through the city, playing hide and seek in their small apartment. It’d always been just him and his dad, and that was the way Dan had liked it.

It all changed when his dad had had a heart attack when Dan was six. He’d been shipped off to live with his uncle, who’d been less than pleased to have to take care of him. Dan had always done his best to stay out of his uncle’s way.

Whereas other kids vied for their parents’ attention, bugged them to play with them and buy them toys and let them eat ice cream, Dan learned that it was in his best interest to avoid his uncle. He would find himself his own meals most days, had packed his own lunches for school and forged his uncle’s signature on stupid forms sent home. The only reason he’d ever actively engaged his uncle was to ask about his parents.

One day when he was nine, after having worked up the courage all afternoon, he went to his uncle and asked, “Who was my mother?” It was something that had always bothered him a lot. He never had a mom around, couldn’t even imagine what she looked like, and he hadn’t ever thought to bug his dad about it. He was perfectly happy with that one person in his life, why should he need any other?

It was only after his dad had passed away that he began to wonder. He hadn’t even known who his mother  _was_ , much less whether she was even alive or not! A small, useless, hopeful part of him had briefly entertained the thought of his mom being out there somewhere and learning of Dan living with his horrible uncle. And once she did she would come save him and take him away to her mansion where he would have lots of toys and friends and stories of his father.

He’d been wrong, of course.

“Some city slut, I’m sure,” his uncle had snapped at him. Dan had felt his eyes go wide, his face hot. It wasn’t like he hadn’t heard his uncle cuss, it was just… he’d never really liked it, was all. And he didn’t really like it directed at his mother either, whether he even knew who she was or not. “None of us ever met her. Your dad just called Mom and Dad one day to tell them he had a kid. What a fuck up…” his voice had trailed off at the end but Dan still heard it. He always heard it.

And so, seeing as he got so little attention at home, he’d always been kind of desperate to get it elsewhere. He’d always been trying to make friends, putting himself out there again and again only to continually find himself rejected. Later people would tell him that it was because he was a half-blood, a demigod. The other kids could sense the power in his veins and naturally shrank away from it. Maybe that was part of the reason his uncle hated him too—that and the money he wasted on medicine for Dan’s ADHD. (Which, Dan hadn’t even asked for in the first place. And no one would’ve even  _known_  he had ADHD if it hadn’t been for his third grade teacher. His uncle certainly wouldn’t have noticed, and he only ended up buying the medicine to shut his teacher up. Dan hated taking it.)

It made sense, then, that the first sign of someone being genuinely nice to him made Dan latch on. He’d been eleven when he’d first met the satyr (a person with the legs of a goat). He hadn’t known that Alex was a satyr at the time, he’d just known he was kind to Dan. He sat with him at lunch and joked about their teachers and listened to Dan’s stories. And then, after a couple weeks of blessed friendship, the school year had come to an end and Alex had pulled him aside.

He’d told Dan all about being a demigod—though Dan hadn’t exactly  _believed_  him at the time. His thought process had been more along the lines of,  _great, I finally make a friend and he’s crazy_. Except that Alex really hadn’t been crazy and everything he’d told Dan was the truth. Apparently Dan’s father had managed to catch the attention of a god at some point during his life and later Dan had been delivered to him. Except his dad had died and Dan had been carted off to his uncle, losing contact with the camp and leaving Dan all alone in the world in more ways than he’d even realized. By the time the camp director had located him again he’d just been glad Dan was even alive, apparently.

And the reason Dan had finally been learning all of that was because at the ripe old age of eleven he was strong enough to garner the attention of monsters (who just liked to hunt all demigods in general, possibly for sport), which meant he would have to start spending more of his time at Camp Half-Blood—a place where demigods like him spent training: learning to combat monsters and go on quests if need be.

At the time, Dan had hated the idea of it. He didn’t want to go to a camp where he’d inevitably know no one and have no friends, another place where he’d be an outcast. He’d been made fun of enough times in his life for being dyslexic, the words on any page scrambling around and becoming indecipherable. The combination of that and his ADHD left him unable to properly concentrate in class. But luckily for him, it hadn’t been his choice whether he went to the camp or not. Alex explained to him that there he’d finally,  _finally_  fit in. He’d learned that both his ADHD and dyslexia were because of his godly lineage, his brain was automatically wired for reading Greek and his body for fighting—his “disorders” had never really been disorders at all.

And so Dan tried to contain his excitement as they drove to Camp Half-Blood. It was hard to force himself to sit still in the car, to not bounce in his seat or lean forward as if doing so could make the car move faster. He just wanted to be there already! He wanted to spend hot days under the sun, learning the ten best ways to dispose of a Chimera or picking strawberries from the strawberry field. He wanted to talk to Chiron, a centaur who was basically in charge at camp (Dan’s mouth had dropped right open the first time he’d seen him). He even didn’t mind seeing Mr. D if it meant he was finally back at camp. Mr. D was actually Dionysus, one of the twelve major gods, but Zeus had kicked him out of Olympus (conveniently located above the Empire State Building, who knew!?) and made him work as the camp director at Camp Half-Blood as punishment for falling in love with a nymph or something. Zeus was always getting mad at this or that and punishing people for it. And really, it was more of a punishment for the campers than the god, seeing as they were forced to constantly deal with Mr. D’s attitude.

“Ugh,” Dan’s uncle groaned, pulling Dan out of his thoughts. The car was rumbling ominously, which was normal, but his uncle was pulling over to the side of the road because of it, which was not.

“What’s wrong?” Dan decided to ask.

“Hell if I know,” his uncle bit out. He threw the car in park, looking over at Dan and chewing on the side of his cheek. “We’re close enough to that camp of yours,” he decided. “You can walk the rest of the way.”

“ _What_?” Dan exclaimed. “Are you serious!?”

“When am I ever not serious? Get your ass out there and walk!”

Dan muttered something under his breath that would’ve gotten him slapped if he stayed a moment longer, so he grabbed his pitifully small bag and slung it over his shoulder. The moment he was out of the car it whipped around, driving right over the median of the highway and swerving down the other side.

“Asshole!” Dan shouted uselessly, before turning and stomping in the direction of Camp Half-Blood. It was only a couple more miles, right?

He just wanted to be there already. More than anything, more than all he’d missed during the school year,  _every_  school year, he wanted to see Emma. She was his best friend in the whole world. He met her at camp, obviously. They spent every waking moment together, occasionally even daring to sneak into each other’s cabins to have sleepovers together.

She was a daughter of Hermes, which maybe explained how mischievous she could be. It definitely explained her tendency to steal. Dan spent every school year trying not to think of how much he missed her only for it to all build up in an overwhelming crescendo by the time he was close to seeing her again.

Thankfully, thinking of Emma and how close he was to seeing her seemed to help him walk. No cars pulled over to ask him if he was alright, if he needed a ride anywhere, and Dan didn’t bother to try to flag any down. He had no doubt that no one would stop for him. And on the off chance that someone did, it would probably be a monster.

Lost in thought, Dan hardly noticed the figure out of the corner of his eye until he was almost parallel to it. He blinked. Surely it was a figment of his imagination? But… no, there really was someone standing in the edge of the woods, beckoning to him.

From nearly six years of experience as a demigod he knew this could be anything, from a monster trying to rip him open and eat his kidneys to a god in need of help. Dan huffed, wishing he’d thought to grab his knife before leaving. He hadn’t thought he would need it though—he was supposed to be back at camp by now, supposed to be surrounded by weapons he could properly use.

Still, Dan shrugged and made his way down the slope anyway. He could probably use the trees around him to his advantage if he needed to. He always figured out something when he was in the thick of battle, everything slowing down around him.

“What do you want?” Dan demanded, stopping a good ways away from the monster/god/possibly-lost-mortal. The woman tsked.

“Is that any way to speak to your mother?”

It was a correct description to say Dan was floored. Everything seemed to stop, his thoughts no longer moving, his eyes not blinking, his mouth dry as could be. And then it all kicked back on again. He swallowed uncomfortably.

“Um—Mom?”

Now that he knew it really was his mom, he felt stupid for not realizing sooner. He’d only met her a couple times before, brief and kind of awkward and just weird in general (his mom was a Greek goddess for fuck’s sake), but her presence was the same. She looked different—she always looked different—but she was still recognizable. It was the fact that she looked like someone Dan should know, someone whose name danced just out of reach, forever on the tip of his tongue. She was beautiful, the kind of beautiful that had you sure she was several kinds of famous, and just what was her name again?

Her name was Aphrodite.

Dan could still remember when she’d claimed him as her son. It’d been his first night at camp—at the time Alex had still been around, though now he was always gone, always out gathering more demigods. But everyone had greeted him kindly, had introduced themselves, had chatted with him and talked about their experiences and showed him how the magic plates and goblets worked (you said what you wanted to eat and it just  _appeared_ ). It’d been that night when they were all gathered around the campfire that a glowing symbol had appeared about his head, burning so bright that it lit up the ground around him—a dove.

“Aphrodite!” one person had cheered, and then people were clapping him on the back and congratulating him and telling him random facts about the goddess that was apparently his mom.

Dan had been mortified.

Out of all the awesome gods that could’ve been his parent, he had to get  _Aphrodite_? Goddess of  _love_? The thought made Dan want to scoff. Love, the one thing he didn’t bother to care about. It wasn’t real, for one thing. Just a delusion people allowed themselves to have, which was idiotic on all their parts. “Love” made people weaker, it tore down their defenses and set them up for failure. Maybe a certain kind of love existed, the kind between father and son, between brothers or best friends, but Dan’s father was dead, along with any hope of Dan believing in the fairytale called love.

He’d met Emma on his second day of camp shortly after breakfast. “Son of Aphrodite, huh? It fits you,” she’d said. Dan had to stop himself from punching her. He had absolutely no idea what she could possibly have meant by it. Still, instead of starting his second day at camp by punching someone in the face, he just shrugged.

“I don’t see it,” he snorted. Their friendship had somehow progressed from there.

“Do you want something from me?” Dan finally asked, done gaping at his mother. He knew to other people she appeared as their greatest desire, or something, but to her children she was just beautiful. Unfairly so. It was said that all her children were beautiful too—sometimes Dan wondered if that gene had skipped him.

Aphrodite cocked her head. “I can’t just visit my son?”

“You planned to meet like this?” Dan questioned. “On the side of a highway?”

“Life can be strange,” Aphrodite said simply, before walking towards him. She hooked her arm through his and led him back towards the side of the road where she began walking, still towards Camp Half-Blood. “Just as love can be.”

Dan groaned.

“You don’t like love,” Aphrodite said. It wasn’t a question. Sometimes Dan wondered if the gods were secretly spying on their children all the time or if they could just be omniscient when they wanted to be. Or maybe they were just good guessers.

“I don’t believe in it,” Dan corrected.

“Strange,” Aphrodite said. “You’d think I’m proof that love is real.”

“You’re proof that beauty is real. And lust. And infatuation.”

“But not love.”

Dan shrugged.

“You’re young,” Aphrodite pointed out, heading along the same argument that Emma always did. He just hadn’t found the right person yet, hadn’t even been in a relationship, how could he think love wasn’t real?

“You think I’ll find the right girl and magically realize love is real,” Dan said flatly. Aphrodite pursed her lips.

“Something like that,” she murmured.

“Well, you’re wrong,” Dan said. And fed up with all the games, all the dancing around what was really happening here, he said, “So why are you really here? What do you need?”

Aphrodite sighed. “I was hoping you could help me. Go on a quest, maybe.”

Dan wanted to refuse. He wanted to tell his mother  _nah, no thanks, I’m good_. Except it was what every demigod wanted most, to go on a quest. Dan had been on one once before, but it’d been short, and rather boring, and it hadn’t even been  _his_  quest anyway. And so, even though a part of him rebelled at the very idea, Dan found himself turning to her, wide-eyed with excitement. “What do you need me to do?”

“It’s my bow,” she said simply. “Cupid’s bow, really, but… it’s been stolen.”

“And you need to shoot people with love arrows or something?” Dan scoffed.

“Will you obtain it for me or not?” Aphrodite said abruptly, stopping their progression to turn and look at Dan, her hands on his shoulders.

“I will,” Dan found himself saying. He couldn’t have said no. Not a single part of him would’ve allowed it.

Aphrodite smiled, relieved and excited. “You’ll have to talk to the Oracle.”

Dan felt giddy with excitement. He’d never talked to the Oracle before, never been inside the attic where it was stored. It was the spirit of Delphi trapped in its mummified body, which was honestly pretty terrifying when you thought about it, though Dan was still more than ready to hear a prophecy from it.

“Okay,” Dan said, trying and failing to keep how eager he sounded under wraps. “I’ll get your bow back for you, I promise.”

“Thank you,” she said, and then she surprised him. She leaned forward and kissed him on the forehead, making Dan’s eyes go wide and his cheeks red with embarrassment. He wasn’t used to such displays of affection. He didn’t even like hugs, really, though Emma always insisted on giving him one when she saw him again (and another one before they separated at the end of the summer). It was really all he could stomach, usually.

“You’re welcome,” Dan stuttered, stumbling a quick step back and looking towards his feet, feeling supremely awkward. Parents were supposed to show affection. They were supposed to love and hug and kiss their kids, it should feel  _normal_. Maybe the only reason it didn’t was because Dan hadn’t felt any semblance of it in ten years.

“Good luck, Dan, not that you’ll need it,” Aphrodite said pleasantly. But then she stepped forward again, putting her hand on his shoulder once more. She waited for him to look up at her before she spoke again. “You know that no form of love is wrong, don’t you?”

Dan snorted. “Don’t try to defend your weird Cupid’s bow shit to me—I don’t even care,” he said, rolling his eyes. It didn’t matter to him who she forced to fall in love. Aphrodite frowned, looking as if she wanted to say something more, but Dan shrugged her hand off his shoulder, feeling uncomfortable.

“You’re father was a wonderful man,” she said, and Dan almost choked on his tongue.

“Um. Yeah,” Dan said intelligently, before looking past her, avoiding her eyes. “Can I go to camp now?”

“You’re already there,” Aphrodite said. Dan spun around, mouth gaping as he saw Camp Half-Blood across the street from him, having shown up much sooner than it probably should have.

“Er—thank you,” Dan managed, but when he turned back around it was to find that his mother was already gone.

—

It was only after he’d had the life crushed out of him by Emma (never again) and a delicious meal in his stomach that he thought to bring up the fact that his mother had visited and imparted upon him a mission. The very second he brought it up Emma was bouncing up and down, was dragging Dan from the dining hall and to the Big House, where Chiron, the activities director, could always be found. And it turned out that even Mr. D couldn’t turn down their demand to go on a quest when it came explicitly from another god. And so, without further ado, Chiron was shooing Dan up the stairs, telling him to go to the attic and not come back until he had a prophecy.

It was creepy, first of all. Dan had never been higher than the main floor of the Big House and the further up he went the more he felt like he was distinctly out of bounds. To get into the attic he had to pull the lever of a trapdoor and climb a set of rickety stairs that descended. And the attic itself was a disaster—there was junk everywhere: abandoned furniture and random trophies from battles and quests, all covered in layer upon layer of dust. And in the back of the room seated in a chair was the Oracle.

Strips of cloth were hanging off its arms and torso, making Dan afraid it might start to unravel and he’d be left in here with a rotting body. Maybe its arm would fall off. He ignored his unease and crept closer. The Oracle was wearing a bunch of beaded necklaces, looking kind of like a long-dead hippie. He paused in front of it.

“Um,” he said, not really sure what he was supposed to do now that he was here. Perhaps he should’ve asked. “My mom wants me to go on a quest. Someone stole her Cupid’s bow.”

For a moment, nothing happened. But then, terrifyingly, the Oracle rose to its feet. Dan stumbled backwards, managing not to trip over any of the randomly left out junk, as green smoke poured from the Oracle’s mouth and circled around him. Its voice was unearthly, both in his mind and echoing around the room at the same time. Dan found himself clutching a nearby chair as his heart raced, listening with all his might, determined not to forget the prophecy.

_“Three shall travel from sun to set,_

_While one will suffer for the cost of a bet,_

_But in one’s hour of greatest need,_

_A God’s assistance will help to succeed,_

_Burning passion and justice's demands,_

_Will find the bow in another’s hands,_

_In the final hour let truth be told,_

_As one’s last wish takes its hold.”_

The words were ringing around his head, spinning in circles, but he was determined to remember them. He repeated them under his breath, over and over again, barely even able to comprehend what they meant when he was so determined to not forget them.

The very second Dan was back with Emma, Chiron standing a little ways across from her, he repeated the prophecy.

“I wonder who’ll go with us,” Emma muttered.

“I wonder what it  _means_ ,” Dan said.

“It’s little use trying to make sense of it,” Chiron said wisely. “Usually they have many meanings anyway.”

And so Dan waited to see who the third member of his quest was going to be. Many people had already volunteered but none of them seemed quite right—Dan was sure he’d know for certain when the right person came forward. With that on his mind he turned to go back to his cabin to pack. Who knew how long his quest was going to take?


	2. Chapter 2

Phil was probably the only person who  _didn’t_  want to go on the quest. News of it had spread quickly through Camp Half-Blood, demigods left and right claiming they’d be the ones to venture outside the camp with Dan Howell. Phil couldn’t care less.

He didn’t  _want_  to put himself in danger, unlike the rest of the idiots he was constantly surrounded by. He didn’t want to be put in a situation where he could very likely die, the only thing keeping that from happening was his own training, which he’d been forced to do every summer since he was twelve. Sure, he was thankful he had it, knowing that now if he was ever attacked by a charging monster he wasn’t as likely to die as he might’ve been several years ago, but he didn’t want to have to do it.

Fighting just wasn’t fun for him, like it seemed to be to everyone else around here. He didn’t try to sneak out of the camp in search of some terrifying creature resurrected from Tartarus, the great abyss somewhere deep under the earth where monsters came from. He just wanted to be a normal teenager. He wanted to have normal friends and do normal things and not have to be paranoid every day of the year when he was where he actually wanted to be—the real world.

Maybe this was why all his siblings hated him. Half-siblings, technically. They all shared the same father anyway, though their mothers varied greatly.

Phil’s father was Ares—god of war, macho badass with a thirst for blood, or some shit. Phil didn’t  _really_  know; he’d never even met the guy. He felt like maybe there should be some kind of DNA test, some drawing of his blood and sending it off to a doctor to see if he was actually Ares’ son. He didn’t know how much to trust a glowing symbol above his head sent from Ares’ to claim him. Like,  _hey, this is mine. Thought I left that kid somewhere!_

So yeah, Phil was about as different from the rest of his siblings as he could get. They were all as bloodthirsty as any kid of Ares ought to be—they loved to fight and maim; they were loud and boisterous and strong.  _Phil_  was strong, of course he was. It was in his blood, apparently, but that didn’t mean he enjoyed it. And his siblings hated that he didn’t enjoy it. They ignored him when they weren’t taunting him, rolled their eyes when he stooped to speak to them, and did everything in their ability to keep him from meeting his dad.

It was pathetic, right? That a bunch of kids his age were constantly holding the one thing he probably wanted most over his head? That he was letting them? Because, sure, he might say he didn’t believe Ares was his father, but deep down, in his bones, he knew it to be true. He could  _feel_  it. And what kid growing up without a dad didn’t wish with every fiber of their being to meet him? Phil could remember laying in his bed at night, wondering where his dad was in the world, wondering if he was doing something cool or important or newsworthy. And to think he finally knew, had known for  _years now_ , and still hadn’t ever met the guy? It sucked.

Maybe it was his fault for not standing up for himself. He could remember all those presentations from elementary school, all those videos and lectures about telling someone if you were getting bullied, about finding help and standing up against the bad guys with a Bigger, Badder Guy: an adult. But Phil had never done that—he hadn’t  _thought to_  when he was twelve-years-old and surrounded by taller and stronger kids who were apparently related to him—all he could think about was being scared. And it would be embarrassing to ask someone for help now! To admit that not only had he been letting this happen for almost five years now but that he needed help? No, Phil could handle any situation that came his way by himself, thank you very much.

He’d been handling himself thus far, anyway. When his siblings did something incredibly horrible he didn’t cry about it, didn’t whine or complain. He just took it like he always had. Like when an opportunity had once arisen to visit Olympus and meet his father, Phil had known not to even get his hopes up. And he’d been right. The trip was only to happen after summer break ended, when most kids went back home, but Phil had wanted to stay. He’d wanted to  _go_. He’d been threatened, of course. And when that didn’t work, beat up. But no matter the circumstances, Phil kept trying. He never gave up, despite the fact that the entire time he fought for it, fought for the chance to see his father, he never expected it to actually happen.

That was why, when a chance finally,  _finally_  arose, Phil took it.

“Hey Phil,” Amy said, leering at him from a bunk across the cabin. Any sibling randomly deciding to speak to him was never a good sign.

“What?” Phil responded. He’d only popped in quickly—just long enough to get his swimming trunks before going for a swim in the lake.

“We have a… wager, for you,” she said, her grin sharp and wicked on her face. “A bet.” By the looks she exchanged with the rest of their cabin-mates, Phil knew it couldn’t be good.

“No,” he said flatly.

“I wouldn’t refuse it if I were you,” Amy sing-songed, and Phil cursed his curious nature, cursed his innate need to  _know_ , and spun to face her.

“What.”

“Dan Howell needs a third member for his quest,” Amy said, looking excited. She was leaning forward on her bed, her eyes wide, almost wild. “Go on it with him.” Phil stared at her blankly. “If you can make him fall in love with you then…” she glanced around the cabin, “We’ll let you come to Olympus with us. We’re going again this winter, Chiron’s already planned it and everything.”

Phil felt his breath catch in his chest. He wanted to say no, of  _course_  he wanted to say no, but… He wanted to see his father more.

“Dan Howell?” Phil repeated slowly, his mouth pinched into a frown. Everybody knew that Dan Howell didn’t do love. He was a paradox in that way, much like Phil was. Dan was the son of Aphrodite and every bit as beautiful to prove it—if looks could kill, laying eyes upon him might strike you dead. But looks couldn’t kill, and so looking at him left many pining hopelessly, because Dan Howell didn’t  _do_  relationships, he didn’t  _do_ love. Some even said he didn’t believe in it. “It’s impossible,” Phil finally decided.

“Then so is you meeting Dad,” Amy said pleasantly. Phil felt himself glower, felt anger and defiance rise and bubble beneath his skin. He’d always had a pretty hard time controlling his temper, having to shove it down and down and down. Sometimes he failed, and he lashed out with all his strength, leaving destruction and ruin in his wake.

“Fine,” Phil snapped, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. “I’ll do it.” If he wasn’t careful he would go into a rage. It’d happened sometimes when he was little—he’d feel himself get angrier and angrier, hot all over with righteous indignation, and then—nothing. Until he came back to, having blacked out in a moment of total destruction, his mind apparently on vacation while his body went about messing everything up for him. A gift from Ares, Phil was sure.

Still, he wouldn’t be allowed to let his anger rule over him from here on out. Not if he wanted to trick Dan Howell into falling in love with him.

—

It certainly wasn't where Phil wanted to be, standing before Dan Howell, whose eyebrow was raised condescendingly.

" _You_  want to go on the quest?" he said skeptically. His arms were crossed across his chest. He was looking at Phil like he was a gross bug he was about to step on.

Phil imagined that this look exactly was the reason people called him the 'Howell Snub'. He wasn't sure if Dan was aware of the name for the phenomenon that was known around the camp for when he turned someone down. Some people claimed he didn't even know he was being come on to most of the time, though Phil wasn't sure if he believed it. How could anyone that looked like, well,  _that_ , not realize people were hitting on him all the time?

"Yep," Phil said, after puffing his cheeks full of air and blowing it out. He swung his arms by his sides awkwardly.

"I don't even know your name," Dan admitted, unabashed, despite the fact they'd been going to the same camp for probably five years now. Sure, they'd never spoken before, but still.

"It's Phil Lester," Phil said, trying not to get angry. It was well known that Dan had a bad attitude. "Son of Ares."

"Right," Dan said. "Why do you even want to go?"

"Do I need a reason?"

"People die on quests sometimes. Is your reason good enough to die for?"

Phil rolled his eyes. "You need a third person and I'm ready and willing. I'm good at fighting. What more do you need?"

Dan sucked in one cheek, looking Phil up and down. He tried not to squirm, very abruptly remembering that he was supposed to be making Dan fall in love with him on this quest. Crap. He'd already been kind of rude to him, hadn't he?

"Fine," Dan finally said. "You can come with us. We're leaving tomorrow morning."

Phil tried not to let himself grin too hugely. He would be meeting his father! After he got Dan to fall in love with him, of course. And if he didn't die on the quest. But that didn't happen  _that_  often, did it?

—

Phil was woken by loud banging. And grumbling. And a pillow hitting him in the face.

“Ow, quit it,” he muttered, shoving the pillow off him and onto the floor.

“Get the door, asshole!” answered the boy that’d hit him with the pillow in the first place. It was only then that Phil remembered everything that was happening today. He was glad he’d ended up packing his bag the previous night—though he hadn’t expected them to leave for their quest before the godsdamned sun was even up.

A few moments later, after managing to pull on some real clothes, Phil wrenched open the door, squeezing out of it and shutting it behind him. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes before running them over Dan, whose fist was still raised as if to continue knocking. He looked just as tired as Phil felt, but whereas Phil probably looked like ass, Dan simply looked disgruntled and grumpy. His curly hair was messy like he’d styled it that way, his cheeks adorned with the lightest of freckles and his tired eyes slitted as he glared at Phil.

“I told you we were leaving in the morning,” he said, foregoing a normal greeting.

“Good morning to you too,” Phil answered, and Dan rolled his eyes. “You never said how early,” Phil finally said with a shrug, and Dan huffed an annoyed noise out of his mouth before turning and walking away. His backpack bounced merrily between his shoulder blades, his hands clutching the straps as they walked.

“Where’s our third person?” Phil questioned, glancing around as if their final quest member might pop out of thin air.

“I told Emma to wait up on the hill for us,” Dan answered. And then, after a moment of thought, “She probably isn’t there. She doesn’t like waiting. Or sitting still.” And Dan was right—by the time they’d made it to the top of the hill, leaning against a large tree as they examined their surroundings, it was clear that Emma was nowhere in sight.

“Any idea where she might be?” Phil asked. He tried not to look nervous. There was something about leaving the campgrounds that was always unnerving. Past the tree they were leaned against now was the edge of the camp’s boundaries, the very end of the protection the land could offer them. Out there any monster could reach them.

“Best not to try to predict Emma,” Dan answered. And before they knew it, Emma was cresting the hill, a bagel in hand.

“You got breakfast?” Dan said incredulously. Emma shrugged.

“I was hungry.”

“The dining hall isn’t even  _open_.”

Emma shrugged again. “The kitchens were.”

Dan sighed as if his friend stealing things was normal, which it probably was, to be honest.

Emma was pretty. If Phil didn’t know better he might assume she was a child of Aphrodite as well, her dark skin smooth and blemish free, her hair curlier than Dan’s.

“You must be Phil,” Emma said amicably, nodding at Phil. He recognized her from around the camp. He’d maybe seen her go into the cabin of Hermes a few times, which would certainly explain the stealing. “Bagel?” she offered, holding a half of it forward invitingly.

“Yes please,” Phil said quickly, and then the both of them were munching quietly on their breakfast, Dan looking between the two of them, unimpressed. 

“Alright then, are we done here?” he said. “Ready to go?”

“Yep,” Phil answered. He’d managed to strap on his weapon belt while they’d been waiting for Emma. It was really just a belt with holsters on the side, complete with a sword. He frowned, realizing he couldn’t see a weapon on either of his companions. Sure, some were small, but were they keeping them in their bags, or something? “Don’t you have weapons?” he finally asked.

In response, Dan stuck his hand straight out in front of him, muttered something, and all of a sudden he was holding something that looked like a sledgehammer. He smirked.

“That’s…” Phil didn’t really  _have_  an answer for what that was. “Handy. How’d you make it appear?”

“My mom gave it to me,” Dan said, his eyes going a bit out of focus as he obviously remembered something from his past. “I think she got it from your dad, actually.” Phil looked at the weapon with newfound interest. He could hardly imagine Dan using it—Dan, pretty curly hair, fair skin, (was that  _eyeliner_?), swinging this giant, obviously heavy weapon around. But he handled it like he was familiar with it, and Phil didn’t doubt that he was skillful, having received the weapon as a gift from Aphrodite in the first place. It made sense that he could make it appear out of nowhere then, if some kind of godly power was attached to it. Or the words he was saying.

Finally, Phil looked to Emma. “I don’t fight much,” she said with a shrug. “I’m better at escaping, really. And tricking people. And stealing things.”

“You’re great at stealing things,” Dan muttered.

“But I  _do_  have this,” Emma said, ignoring him. She withdrew a knife from her bag, celestial bronze like the rest of their weapons, and twirled it between her fingers. “For emergencies.”

“Sounds good to me,” Phil said finally, hiking his bag up higher on his back and turning to face the opposite side of the hill. “Guess we really are ready then.”

A van was waiting for them at the bottom of the hill, driven by a man who worked at their camp. Well, kind of a man. He had eyes all over his body, anyway.

They piled into the idling van and sat across from each other as it took off, chugging merrily down the highway. Phil frowned thoughtfully.

“Where are we going, anyway? What are we doing?”

Emma looked flabbergasted. “You didn’t tell him what we were doing?” she said to Dan incredulously. Dan looked offended.

“He didn’t ask!” he protested.

“Still!”

This resulted in the two of them glaring at each other for a moment before retreating simultaneously. Dan finally turned to Phil, looking annoyed. “We’re just going west right now,” he said with a shrug. “That’s what the prophecy said. We’re looking for Cupid’s bow for my mom.”

“I’ll take it you haven’t heard the prophecy either?” Emma asked dryly, and Phil nodded. With a sigh, Emma relayed the prophecy. Phil didn’t know what to feel.

 _One will suffer at the cost of a bet._  Well this was obviously Dan, who would fall in love with Phil only to realize his feelings weren’t actually reciprocated. Phil felt bad hearing the words, knowing the ruse he was about to pull on Dan would cause him actual suffering, but he had to do it. He  _had_  to meet his father.

Of course, there was also the line:  _a God’s assistance will help to succeed_. What if Phil didn’t even need to properly accomplish his goal? What if he could snub all of his stupid siblings and their trip to Olympus by meeting his father here on earth? He knew it was probably bad that they’d be getting themselves into a situation so dangerous that they would need a god to help them out, but Phil couldn’t find it in himself to care. Not if it meant Ares would finally be by his side.

Thoughts of the prophecy swirled around his head, making him sit back and just  _think_ , try to concentrate on all the words he’d heard. He knew it was useless to try to decipher a prophecy, that they were obscure and strange and sometimes made no sense at all, but he couldn’t help it. He just wanted to  _know_ , wanted to figure out what was going to happen.

For some reason, it all kept coming back to this: he’d have to make Dan Howell fall in love with him.

Dan Howell, a person Phil probably had less of a chance with than a frog. Dan Howell, who not only didn’t believe in love but adamantly thought it was a ridiculous notion entirely, his views on the matter stated so explicitly that it drifted around the camp like fog.

Holding in a sigh, Phil figured that the sooner he could make Dan fall in love with him, the better. Deciding to start now, with small but deliberate steps, Phil slouched low in his seat. He then extended his legs, letting his feet knock against Dan’s.

Phil would make Dan fall in love with him, even if he had to play footsie with him a hundred times.


	3. Chapter 3

Dan didn’t know what to think of Phil Lester.

He’d seen him around before, of course. They’d gone to the same camp for years, it was impossible to not recognize everyone there. Still, Dan had always been bad at names, and he was even worse about putting effort toward things he simply didn’t _care_  about, and so he had never bothered to learn who Phil was. Maybe with a bit of thought, some time scrounging, he could’ve come up with a decent guess, but not enough for him to like, say hi to Phil if he’d seen him on the street.

In all honestly, he was surprised the other boy had even volunteered to go on a quest in the first place. Dan certainly wouldn’t want to go on a quest with two people he barely even knew—how could he possibly trust them to defend him, to watch his back?

Maybe Phil wasn’t worried about having others to guard his back—he _was_  a son of Ares, after all. It was pretty much all Dan even knew about the guy. He could probably defend all their backs at the same time if he needed to.

It wasn't like Dan had agreed to let him come just for that reason, though—he didn’t need someone at his back. He could take care of himself perfectly fine on his own, thank you very much. He’d be able to take care of himself even better now that he had his warhammer again. His mother had gotten it for him during his second year at camp. It wasn’t every day you met a kid of Aphrodite who actually _liked_  to fight, and his mother had taken notice of that.

“Here,” she’d said preemptively. It’d been the first time Dan had ever met his mother, and he hadn’t known what to think. “It’s for you.”

“What is it?” Dan had asked, because apparently staring at a hammer almost the size of him wasn’t answer enough. And also because, apparently, needing to know what a giant hammer was was more important than asking who the mysterious person giving it to him was.

“It’s a warhammer. Ares got this one special for you—I asked him to. And he got Hephaestus to make it, but that’s besides the point.” Dan had stared at her, blank-faced. “I know you like fighting. I think you’ll be good at using this.”

“Er—thank you,” Dan had finally managed, reaching out to take the weapon. He’d nearly fallen over at the weight of it.

“Technically speaking, gods aren’t really supposed to _do_  this kind of thing to a mortal’s weapon, but…” Aphrodite had looked around nervously then, as if afraid someone was going to stop her. She’d even looked to the sky, probably thinking Zeus would zap her right then and there. And then she’d leaned forward and whispered, “Ares and I put a little godly mojo on it, if you’re picking up what I’m putting down.”

Dan hadn’t been picking up what she’d been putting down, but he’d nodded anyway, because he’d literally only just then realized that it was his mother before him, and he was astounded.

“Just say _videtur_  and it’ll show up in your hand. _Evanscet_  and it’ll vanish.”

“I—thank you,” Dan had said breathlessly, hoping he could remember the words. And then he’d said the one to make it vanish, surprised when it actually had.

“You’re welcome,” Aphrodite had said, smiling at him. “I’ve taken a real liking to you, Dan. I’m glad you’re my son.”

“Oh,” Dan had managed, his eyes wide. “Thanks.” His mom had winked.

“Its name is Wit’s End, by the way,” she’d added, finally standing up straight again and flipping her hand over her shoulder. No wonder Dan’s father had let himself get seduced—she was beautiful. “Get it? You bash someone’s head in and… you know. You’ve smashed their brain. Ended their wit.”

“Oh! Yeah, that’s—that’s cool. A cool name,” Dan had agreed hastily, and with a quick ruffle of his hair, Aphrodite had been wishing him the best and disappearing in a wave of perfume.

Now, Dan was just glad she’d given it to him all those years ago. He’d grown quite adept at using it, and it was because of Wit’s End that he’d never felt the need to have someone like Phil standing at his back. No, the only reason he’d decided to let Phil come along was because he’d been a lot more straightforward and a lot less annoying than everyone else who’d asked to come on the quest with him. Everyone had seemed obsessed with trying to prove themselves, with showing Dan that they were the best to accompany him, and it overwhelmed him to the point where he started avoiding them, trying to scout out someone to bring on his own.

When Phil had first approached him, Dan had feared he’d be just like the rest of them. This had very quickly been proven to be not true. Phil had been curt and to the point, almost scientific in his reasoning as to why he should come. He hadn’t even seemed particularly _excited_  about the adventure (he certainly hadn’t tried to figure out what he was even signing up to _do_  first) and that had helped to solidify in Dan’s mind that he was the right choice.

There was also the fact that, as soon as Phil had opened his mouth to talk to him, Dan had thought _he’s the one_. He hadn’t known why he thought it, had almost felt like it wasn’t even his own thought at all, but he hadn’t been able to deny it was true. Phil’s presence on their quest felt right, like a final puzzle piece pressed into place. Not that Dan had let him know that. Even with something deep inside of him already having accepted Phil, he’d kept up his bored questioning, trying to get the best feel on Phil as he could. After all, he’d probably be spending the next few weeks with the guy.

The only problem was that Phil was kind of… weird.

He was a touchy-feely kind of person, Dan was quickly learning, even just on their car ride with Argus, the hundred eyed man. Even though they’d never been friends before, never even /talked/, Phil somehow found a way to always be touching him. Feet pressing against his from across the aisle, shoulders aligned as he squeezed in to sit next to Dan, resting his head on Dan’s shoulder as he looked down at a map at a gas station, scrunching his nose to examine it.

Even after an entire day of Phil constantly finding new ways to end up touching him, it never stopped surprising Dan, always making him jump a little, always making him stiffen. After all, he’d never been one for casual touching, and here Phil was, wrapping an arm around Dan’s waist to lead him down an aisle of a grocery store when they stepped in to buy some protein bars because gods knew the next time they’d be around civilization. They were about done with their lift from Argus, who was only taking them a little bit further to a bus station, before they’d be all on their own. The only provisions they had left from camp was the little bag of money Chiron had given them—filled with golden drachmas and mortal money alike—along with a few squares ambrosia. In small doses, ambrosia could heal wounds demigods had sustained. It was regular food for gods, but for half-bloods it was better than a hospital.

But when Dan tried to point out Phil’s excessive touchiness to Emma during a rare moment in which Phil wasn’t with them (he’d excused himself to the bathroom while Dan and Emma debated over which protein bar could sustain them the best), Emma just frowned. “Hmm,” she said, apparently wracking her brains. “I haven’t noticed. I mean, I think we bumped shoulders earlier in the van?”

Dan just shook his head. Maybe he was only noticing Phil’s touchiness because he wasn’t used to it. When you were someone like Emma, hugging people left and right, you probably didn’t notice the casual little touches that Phil apparently often distributed.

Still, Dan was either going to have to get used to them or put his foot down. He _wanted_  to talk to Phil, to tell him to stop touching him so much, that it made him oddly uncomfortable for some reason, but he never seemed able to. Instead he just felt flustered.

Dan caught sight of Phil’s head over the tops of the aisles, heading back towards them. He took a deep breath, steadying himself. Right then he resolved to tell Phil that he didn’t like being touched—he would do so as soon as the next opportunity arose.

—

"So how'd your mom lose this bow anyway?" Phil asked, twisting a loose string from his shirt around his finger. Dan shrugged. A fire was blazing before them, Emma curled on the ground on the opposite side of it. They'd decided not to set up their tent, partially because it was actually nice out but mainly because it was a whole lot of work and they were exhausted. It was a lot of work, hiking through the woods in the general direction of what you assumed was west after the bus you’d been riding for only like, an hour, broke down.

"She said it was stolen."

"By who?” Phil asked. Then frowned. “Whom? Who?”

"I don't know," Dan muttered, an answer to both questions. He sighed. It was apparent how underprepared he was for this mission. He didn't have nearly enough information. He didn't even know where he should be going other than _west_. All he had was that stupid, useless prophecy.

 _Three shall travel from sun to set._  Well they were doing that now, but so far nothing had happened. Other than their bus breaking down. And Dan wasn't stupid—he knew this probably wasn't coincidence. Here he was on a quest, having bad luck like everyone else usually did. He didn't doubt that he was near something important right now, that perhaps even a god had made that bus break down on purpose. He was close to a clue, or his next step, he just had no idea what it _was_  yet. Or maybe he wasn't even supposed to be here. Maybe that bus really had just broken down and he'd led Phil and Emma into the woods on a hunch for no reason. Maybe he was just the worst demigod to ever get assigned a quest.

 _While one will suffer for the cost of a bet._ Dan figured this one ought to make sense soon enough. Prophecies happened in order, after all. Although they hadn't run into any particularly notable strangers yet, which was how he was assuming a bet would even be made in the first place. And one of them would suffer, obviously. But what did the rest of the lines mean?

 _In one's hour of greatest need, a god's assistance will help to succeed._  This didn't exactly bode well. The fact that they were eventually going to be in enough trouble that a god was willing to step in was mortifying. And what could possibly be their greatest need, anyway? They'd probably be locked in battle, probably about to perish when— _bam_! Zeus lightings the fucker. Or something like that. Either way Dan felt embarrassed for his future self, having to deal with a god pitying him and his quest so greatly that they step in to help.

 _Burning passion and justice’s demands will find the bow in another's hands._  This line barely even made sense. Burning passion? All Dan could think of was a bad porno.

 _In the final hour let truth be told, as one's last wish takes its hold_. This one sounded particularly ominous. It made Dan unsettled just thinking about what it could mean. What was the final hour? Death? And what wishes would they be making?

Thinking about the prophecy made Dan feel like his head was screwed on too tight. He wanted to collapse against the dirt and groan loudly. And he would do it, too, if he didn’t think that doing so would be perceived as particularly crazy.

"Look!" Phil whispered suddenly, pointing. Dan followed his finger and gasped, realizing that through a copse of trees there were lightning bugs all around, twinkling between the leaves.

"Woah!" Dan gasped, jumping to his feet. He stepped around the fire, closer to the trees, his eyes wide. He didn't even notice Phil following him. "We don't have these in the city," he breathed. He'd never seen them at camp either, strangely enough. It probably had something to do with the magical borders. “They’re so pretty,” Dan said in awe.

There was a pause.

“Like you,” Phil answered. Dan felt his eyes widen in shock as he slowly turned his head to look at Phil. The other boy looked completely calm for having just called Dan pretty. His hands were in his pockets and he was wearing a small smile on his face. Dan could see the lightning bugs reflecting in his eyes.

“Um,” Dan managed. And then he cleared his throat. And glared. “Don’t say that.”

“Why not? It’s true.”

“It’s _nice_ ,” Dan corrected, turning away from Phil to look at the bugs again. They seemed less incredible now, somehow. Phil was still looking at him, Dan could see out of the corner of his eye.

And he didn’t stop complimenting Dan. The rest of the night and the whole next day were filled with an excessive amount of compliments.

It was _strange_  and out of the ordinary and completely unsettling. Dan could barely take a shit without Phil smiling at him and saying his eyes were pretty. This, combined with the near constant touches, was slowly driving Dan insane.

Emma finally began to notice it too, but whereas Dan found it horrible and weird she just found it amusing.

“I don’t know what he _wants_  from me,” Dan hissed to her the next night, Phil having fallen asleep first this time. They’d marched through the forest the entire day, at first optimistic and by the end of it just exhausted. Their lunch had been protein bars and their dinner, also protein bars. Their water bottles were already dwindling and Dan was pretty sure he was failing epically on his quest.

“I think he just has a crush on you,” Emma said with a shrug, which was probably the last thing Dan ever wanted to hear.

“ _What_?”

“What? It’s nothing to be freaked out about. Happens all the time.”

“Not on _me_ ,” Dan whispered harshly, carefully looking at Phil splayed out on his sleeping bag with a newly critical eye. His mouth was hanging open, his chest rising and falling gently with each breath.

“You’re joking, right?”

“What?”

“Like, half the kids in Camp Half-Blood have had a crush on you at some point or another.”

“You’re lying.”

“I’m _not_.”

“You are! How would you know, anyway?”

“Because I’m your best friend,” Emma said seriously. “They come to me to ask for advice on getting with you.”

Dan was stunned. Still, he managed to ask, “What do you tell them?”

“That they don’t have a chance in Tartarus.”

And so that’s exactly what Dan told Phil, the second he woke up the next morning. Though in a slightly nicer way.

“I know you’re flirting with me,” he said abruptly, right after Phil sat up with a yawn and a stretch.

“You’re supposed to know,” Phil said easily, turning a lazy, sleepy grin on Dan. He looked kind of cute. If you were into that. Probably. Dan shook his head.

“You need to stop.”

“How come?”

“Because I don’t date people,” Dan said. And then, after clearing his throat, “And ‘cause I’m straight.”

Dan expected this to do it for Phil. He’d realize that he didn’t have a chance with Dan and leave him alone. Maybe they’d become tentative friends and put this behind them, something to laugh about a few years down the line. Instead, Phil just raised an eyebrow.

“Really?” he said, his voice disbelieving. Dan immediately took offense.

“Yes!”

Phil sat up and stretched, his t-shirt riding up along his pale stomach, revealing his skin inch by inch. And then he settled again, his shirt falling into place, and Dan blinked. Immediately, Phil slid closer to him. It was almost scary, how he’d gone from sitting a few feet away from Dan to being right in front of him in what seemed like less than a second.

“Are you sure?” Phil whispered, his face so close to Dan’s that he went cross-eyed trying to look at him. His breath spilled across Dan’s lips— _disconcertingly_ —as he spoke, making Dan swallow. Uncomfortably.

“Y-yes,” Dan stuttered, for a moment not remembering what exactly he was agreeing to. And then he said it again, with more surety this time.

“Because if you weren’t…” Phil said, his voice even lower now. His hand had found its way onto Dan’s face, which Dan could barely remember happening, and his thumb was touching Dan’s lower lip, brushing across it, pulling it down…

“Stop!” Dan gasped, shoving Phil away and standing up, his heart thundering in his chest—terror, obviously. He’d almost gotten molested! “I _am_  sure! I don’t—I don’t want you saying those things to me.” Phil stood, his lip pouted out. “Or standing so close to me,” Dan added. “Or touching me.”

“That’s a lot of things you want me to do,” Phil commented, still looking cocky. Except, maybe under that, maybe he looked slightly hurt. Maybe his attitude was a facade when really, he was embarrassed or ashamed.

“Well, you’re going to do them,” Dan said, sticking his chin in the air. “And if you don’t I’ll… I’ll… kick you off the quest,” he decided.

Someone cleared their throat. Dan spun, turning to face Emma who was emerging out of the woods. She’d gone on a perimeter check earlier. Dan understood her nerves—rarely had he been away from camp and civilization for so long without a monster picking up his scent. And _three_  demigods all together? Their location was practically broadcasted to every monster with a nose in a fifty mile radius. The fact that they hadn’t even _seen_  one yet was unsettling.

“No one’s getting kicked off the quest,” she said firmly, her arms crossed over her chest. Dan glared at her.

“Keep talking like that and you’ll get kicked off the quest,” Dan informed her. Emma rolled her eyes, used to his dramatics.

“Don’t bother listening to him,” she told Phil, shifting her gaze to him. “He may seem like an asshole, but he’s really quite sweet deep down.”

“I don’t seem like an asshole,” Dan snapped, before marching past Emma without a second glance back at either of them, venturing into the woods.

“Where are you going?” Emma demanded.

“Perimeter check!” Dan barked, fuming. And he stomped away from his friends and further and further into the woods, distracted from everything by the raging and disquiet inside his mind.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wrote this entire chapter in school yesterday ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

Phil shared a wary look with Emma. He honestly hadn’t been trying to make Dan mad—well, other than making Dan fall in love with him (hopefully) and eventually having to break the news that he’d used him to be able to meet his father, which, yeah, would probably end up making him mad. But other than that, this hadn’t been intentional. He’d actually thought that his efforts had been working, Dan actually becoming flustered because of the things he did and said to him.

For a little while there, he’d thought to himself,  _this’ll be a piece of cake_. He was now realizing that it’d be more like a piece of cake filled with glass. And on fire.

It didn’t help that Phil didn’t even really know how to make Dan fall in love with him. Firstly because Dan was convinced he was straight, which he so very completely obviously wasn’t, even if he was still in denial about it. But secondly because he’d never been in love before himself, and all he knew how to do was flirt (badly, if Dan’s reactions were any indication) and sit close to him in hopes that the close proximity would force Dan to realize he loved him. And it wasn’t working at all.

He supposed he could tell Dan the situation he was in and hope Dan would play along in front of his siblings so they’d let him meet Ares, but the thought of admitting to Dan his dastardly plan was terrifying. What if Dan yelled at him for only joining the quest because of his ulterior motives? Dan had already threatened to kick him off the quest just about two minutes ago, although Emma had insisted he wouldn’t really.

With a sigh, Phil kicked out at a rock in front of him, wondering just what in Tartarus he was going to do to make Dan fall in love with him.

Just then, a strangled yell came from the woods, around where Dan had marched off to.

“Dan!” Emma shouted immediately, sprinting into the woods without a backward look. Phil cursed under his breath, scooped up his sword, and darted after her.

He leaped over roots and fallen trees and ducked under low-hanging branches as they ran, Phil a few paces behind Emma.

“Dan!” Emma shouted, breathless.

“Here!” came Dan’s strained reply, and they both darted into the clearing Dan was in, coming to a halt when they saw the monster holding him.

It was a chimera.

Phil had honestly never thought he’d end up seeing one in real life. He’d seen monsters before, of course. He was a demigod, it was impossible to not have seen monsters. But he’d only had to actually face them very rarely.

There’d been the first one he’d ever met, which had posed as a very normal looking girl before he’d realized her arms were snakes and she then proceeded to try to kill him. He’d strangled her with an electrical cord and coughed as she exploded into dust. Other than that, he’d fought a couple monsters in the woods during his time at camp playing capture the flag and whatnot, generally fighting only when he was forced to. But he’d never seen a monster, one on one, after that initial meeting with miss snake-arms.

For a second, he froze—and then he had his sword in his hand and was charging forward.

“I wouldn’t, if I were you,” the chimera said. Most monsters could talk, and while Phil had thought its voice would come out gravelly and deep, it was instead feline and smooth, which maybe made more sense anyway.

The chimera was scarily human, although much taller than one, standing a good two or three feet above Dan. It stood on two legs despite its lion-like body, and instead of front paws it had  _hands_ —with thumbs and everything! It currently had one, claws extended, pressed against Dan’s throat. Phil knew it could breathe fire out of its lion-head, knew its snake-tail was venomous, and still he felt tempted to charge.

“Because if you do,” it continued, “I’ll kill him.” One claw pierced the skin of Dan’s neck (he sucked in a breath through his nose) and blood, dark red, slid down his throat.

“What do you want?” Emma demanded, her dagger held in hand. Her eyes were darting around the clearing, though, looking for opportunities.

Phil made eye contact with Dan, whose eyes were wide. He almost wanted to scoff—Dan had said he was able to defend himself—but he was too worried to feel annoyed. And not just because if Dan died then their quest would fail and he’d truly have no chance of meeting his father. It was because, even despite Dan’s snappy attitude and resistance to being seduced, he seemed like a guy Phil could genuinely like, even if he’d never actually have the opportunity to after he screws him over.

The chimera grinned at them. A lot of the time monsters didn’t even want anything, were just there on their own accord, hunting half-bloods for sport. But sometimes they’d been sent by higher beings, gods, usually. Sometimes worse.

“I’m just trying to persuade you three to turn back,” the chimera purred. “You’ll fail your quest even if you were to continue. What’s the point?”

“Weak,” Phil said with a shrug. “Like that could possibly persuade us.”

“What if I told you you’re going up against a god, little half-bloods? Still keen on going then?”

“A  _god_?” Emma spluttered. “Seriously? A god stole Aphrodite’s bow?”

“Well they didn’t steal it themselves,” Phil added. “I mean, gods can’t steal  _directly_  from other gods.”

“Whatever,” Emma snapped. “And no—just because it’s a god doesn’t mean we’ll quit. Aphrodite entrusted this mission to Dan and us. We’re gonna get it back.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” the chimera chuckled. It’s snake tail came up to caress Dan’s cheek, and he flinched. “Should’ve known a son of Aphrodite wasn’t much of a fighter.” Dan’s eyes hardened, his hands clenching into fists where they were trapped at his sides.

And then Dan whispered something and his giant warhammer appeared in his hand. He could barely maneuver, trapped as he was, but he flicked his wrist downward and slammed the hammer into the chimera’s leg. It roared, letting go of Dan on instinct as it hoped on its other leg.

Dan raised his hammer a second time but the chimera darted out of the way, it’s leg apparently not injured enough to halt it. Phil followed, his sword raised, but it roared and breathed fire. He had to roll out of the way to avoid it, the heat scorching.

“Stop bothering with fighting me,” the chimera laughed. “Don’t you know my claws are poisonous too?”

They all froze, staring at the chimera in horror. “What?” Emma whispered.

“We’ll be seeing each other again,” the chimera purred, and then it was gone, bounding into the forest so fast it was out of sight in seconds.

“I’ve never even heard of a chimera’s claws being poisonous before,” Phil said, turning around to face Dan and Emma, both of whom were wearing identical looks of shock and worry. “We can’t even be sure that it’s true, right?”

And then Dan collapsed.

—

Dealing with a poisoned person was terrifying. Dan was out cold and no amount of slapping his face or shouting at him would wake him up.

“Fuck!” Emma burst out. “We’ll have to carry him! We’ll have to, we’ll have to…” she glanced around, every which way, and paused. “Which way did we come from?”

Phil looked and—everything seemed identical. He’d been running on pure adrenaline, barreling towards the sound of Dan’s voice, but he hadn’t been paying attention to where he was going, hadn’t even thought to remember where all their stuff was. “Shit,” he cursed.

“What are we going to do?” Emma shouted, her eyes practically bugging out of her head as she pulled on her hair. She collapsed next to Dan, shaking him desperately. “How long does the poison take?”

“Maybe we don’t need to do anything,” Phil suggested tentatively. Emma turned and glared at him, so viciously that Phil almost felt a need to take a step back.

“Listen here, Phil Lester,” Emma bit out, her teeth gritted in anger. “You may just be another lousy Ares kid, all fighting and no feelings, but this is my  _best friend_. If you suggest we just  _sit here_  while his life slips away then  _I_ suggest that you run when I come to fucking murder you.”

Phil swallowed, actually taking a step back now. “That’s not—I wasn’t…” he cleared his throat, shook his head. “That wasn’t what I mean.  _In one’s hour of greatest need, a god’s assistance will help to succeed,_ ” he quoted. “Maybe… maybe a god will show up and save Dan.”

“I’m not willing to take that chance,” Emma scoffed. “Besides, no one’s ‘suffered for the cost of a bet’ yet.”

 _But maybe Dan has,_  Phil thought desperately, but he said nothing. With a groan Emma jumped to her feet.

“You stay here and watch over him,” she instructed, jabbing her finger in Dan’s direction. “And if that chimera comes back, let its snake bite you before you let it touch Dan.”

“Got it,” Phil said uneasily.

“I’m gonna run in this direction and hope it’s the way we came from,” Emma continued, pointing over her shoulder with her thumb. And with that, she was turning and running in the other direction, her long legs striding over uneven ground.

With Emma gone, Phil went and kneeled next to Dan. His face was pale, his breathing shallow, but even despite his evident suffering he still looked beautiful. His face was so relaxed in sleep, so innocent, none of his usual looks of scorn or furrowed brows as he glared in annoyance or anger.

 _I could love you_ , Phil realized, looking at him. Not because he was beautiful, although that was certainly undeniable, but because of the times he’d observed Dan without him knowing. Especially now that he was on a mission with him, getting to see him up close instead of from across the dining hall or training in the training room. When Dan thought no one was paying attention to him, he let his guard down, turned soft and sweet and kind. Phil had seen him and Emma talking to each other quietly, happily. He’d seen them laugh together, seen Emma take his walls down brick by brick.

It made Phil want to be able to take his guard down as well. Made him want to see what it was like on the other side of the wall, see what  _Dan_  was like.  _And now I never might,_  he realized, swallowing thickly.  _I can’t let that happen._

Phil grabbed Dan’s hand in his, disoriented by how cold his skin felt. He tried to ignore it, instead pointing his face skyward.

“Aphrodite,” he said aloud, tightening his fingers around Dan’s. “Please. Help us.”

There was no answer, other than the sounds of the forest around him, birds singing and bugs chittering. He cleared his throat.

“I know I’m no son of yours,” he said. “But like, you’re kind of dating my dad. Even though you’re married to Hephaestus…” Phil shook his head. “Not that that’s a  _problem_ , per se…” Very suddenly, the entire forest went silent. Phil sucked in a breath. “For you! It’s of course a problem for us mere mortals, to be untruthful in a relationship. But—but you’re the goddess of love! It only makes sense for you to pursue your one true love, and you never chose to marry Hephaestus in the first place, so…”

The forest was alive again, and the goosebumps that had erupted on Phil’s skin faded away. “So just… please,” he continued. “Please help us. Help  _Dan_.”

Aphrodite didn’t answer. But a cloud in the sky  _did_  shift, just a little, and the sun pierced through it, and through the trees, shining right on a small plant growing at the base of one. Phil looked at it for a moment, bewildered, before he gasped.

“Oh! Oh, thank you! Thank you!” He darted over to the plant, plucked it carefully, and carried it over to Dan. He’d never seen one in real life before, but it’s appearance was easily recognizable. It was a nectar plant, the very same that was harvested by the gods for the nectar they drank. It did the same kind of deal as ambrosia, healing demigods (unless they ate too much, of course, in which case they burned alive or something).

He had no idea whether it’d been there before and Aphrodite had just directed his attention towards it, or if she’d made it grow for him. Either way, he was beyond grateful.

Kneeling over Dan, Phil pried his mouth open and squeezed the stem of the nectar plant, its pale white petals soft and silky where they touched his hand. Thick, golden droplets of nectar squeezed from the stem and into Dan’s mouth, landing on his tongue.

“Wake up,” Phil whispered, even daring to squeeze the last little bit from the stem of the flower. It was dangerous, and Dan definitely wouldn’t be able to consume any more godly food in the next couple of days, but it was worth it. Dan gasped, his eyes fluttering open, darting around, as he sat up in surprise.

“I’m not—where—” he panted, looking all around him. “What?”

“How do you feel?” Phil asked, peering at him intently. His hand was behind Dan’s back, helping him to sit up, and Dan looked at him with wide, shocked eyes.

“Um. Fine,” he said, sounding confused. “But before it was… it was burning. My  _neck_ ,” his hand flew up, fingers connecting with his neck. There was blood there, from before, but the injury was gone. Dan scrubbed away the blood with his sleeve and underneath it, all that was left, was a thin white line.

“How’d you do this?” Dan asked, amazed. “Where’s Emma?”

“She went to go find our supplies, but she hasn’t come back yet,” Phil answered. “I prayed to your mom,” Phil supplied, given Dan’s curious look. He raised the now crumpled flower, and Dan gaped at it in surprise.

“Holy shit…” he breathed. He tried to sit up more but was apparently having a hard time, the ambrosia probably not having worked all the way through his system yet. Phil pulled him up, pulled him against his shoulder, and Dan stiffened. Phil sighed.

“I’m sorry,” he said preemptively. “For being so forward.” And then came the lies, the scheming, the weaving of future plans. “It’s just—I’ve had a crush on you for practically forever, you know? And I saw this quest as a chance to finally get to talk to you. I was overexcited and stepped over way too many boundaries and I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”

“Oh, I, Um. Yes, thank you,” Dan stuttered. “Um. I’m sorry too. For threatening to kick you off the quest.”

“It was deserved,” Phil said with a shrug, and Dan chuckled nervously. He smiled at Phil, and Phil smiled back.

He would have to be much more subtle with his future advances. No more flirting, no throwing himself all over Dan. He’d have to actually befriend him first, have to make Dan trust him, and sneak under his defenses that way. He had to make Dan fall in love with him.

He remembered the forest going completely silent a few minutes ago, just from an offhand comment Phil had said to Aphrodite about love. He just hoped he’d be able to make it through this unscathed. Maybe his father would protect him, once he finally met the man.

Dan was still leaning against Phil’s shoulder, the two of them having moved on to new topics, about camp and monsters and quests, when Emma burst back into the clearing, tears trailing down her face.

“I can’t find our stuff!” she wailed, looking towards Phil in desperation, and then she paused. She took in a shuddery breath. “Dan?”

“Emma,” Dan said with a soft smile. Sure, he’d been being pretty nice to Phil the last few minutes (probably the combination of Phil actually apologizing and the fact that he was most likely a little bit drunk on the nectar in his body) but his face really lit up when he saw Emma, softened completely. If Phil weren’t so sure that Dan wasn’t straight, he would’ve thought he was in love with the girl. “I’m okay,” he promised.

“How?” Emma whispered, while striding across the ground only to sink down on the other side of Dan. She took him into her arms and Dan sighed, long and loud.

“I hate hugs,” he muttered.

“Don’t care,” Emma said, her voice muffled by his neck. “Thought you were dead.”

“Come on! I’m better than that!” Dan protested.

“You were out cold on the ground,” Emma said hotly, pulling away to glare at him, and Dan shrugged.

“Yeah but my mom loves me, apparently.”

Emma raised her eyebrows. Phil pointed to the flower.

“Nectar?” she said incredulously.

“From Aphrodite.”

Soon, Dan felt good enough to walk and they were all standing up carefully, making sure he wasn’t about to pitch over and eat dirt. Still, he was unsteady enough that they decided not to try to search all of the surrounding forest for their bags. This meant that they wouldn’t have any ambrosia for next time, nor money—godly or otherwise. Besides the clothes on their backs and the weapons in their hands (and in Dan’s case, vanished somewhere in the air) they had nothing. Phil didn’t want to bring it up yet but it was pretty obvious that they were going to have to turn to stealing for their next meal. It probably wasn’t such a good idea to mention that right then, however. For now, they could just feel relieved that Dan had managed to escape death and try to find their way to the edge of the forest, where hopefully they could find a road they could walk along. If they were lucky, they might even be able to hitchhike.

“There’s just one thing I don’t understand,” Emma said as they walked, her arm wound around Dan’s waist to assist him. “The prophecy skipped a line. Who suffered? For the cost of the bet, who suffered?”

Phil looked her in the eyes and said, “No idea.”


	5. Chapter 5

“It smells weird,” Emma whispered. Dan elbowed her in the side to make her shut up.

On second thought, maybe hitchhiking hadn’t been the best idea. It’d taken them a couple hours to make it through the forest and to a road, and another hour of sticking up their thumbs and shaking their fists at every car that approached, few and far in between, to finally catch a ride. In that time the nectar had worked its way through Dan’s body and he’d stopped having to shuffle and wince with every step.

They’d thought that snagging a ride with a random, well-meaning road-traveller wouldn’t be a big deal at all. After all, they were demigods: they fought monsters in their free time and hung out with gods on special occasions—what harm could hitchhiking do?

Apparently, a lot.

Firstly, they weren’t even traveling in the right direction. The trucker (Wallis, he’d said his name was) had asked them where they were going. They’d said west and he’d said great and that had been that.

However, it was now apparent that they were actually traveling  _south_. And had been for the last three hours. They hadn’t noticed at first, content to just sit in the back politely and get as far west as they could until Wallis had to go some other way. That’d been before they’d noticed the sun setting—to the right of them, instead of directly in front of them. And then Phil had found a banged up but working compass on the floor by their feet, and sure enough—south.

Really, they’d only managed to sit in here for two hours after realizing they were going the wrong way out of awkwardness. It wasn’t really polite, was it, to tell the man who was letting you hitch-hike that he was taking you the wrong way. And so they didn’t. They just sat there, tense, anxious, wondering if Wallis was actually some kind of monster who’d yet to reveal his inner horrors. In which case, yeah, they should probably get the fuck out of there, huh?

Music was playing on the stereo up front and Wallis was singing along pretty joyfully. They’d exchanged a few words with him throughout the trip, but mostly they’d just been silent, aware of the fact that they were invaders in his truck. And later, aware of the fact that he was taking them in the wrong direction and that saying anything about it might, like, cause him to crash the truck out of spite.

“It really does smell weird,” Phil said, leaning closer to Dan and saying it out of the corner of his mouth. Emma nodded fervently and Dan elbowed them both.

“Shut up!” he hissed.

 _“Draw me a map that leads me back to you…”_  Wallis was singing.

“Maybe it’s dead bodies,” Emma murmured. Dan glared a warning at her. “He churned them up and shoved them under the seats!”

“Eurgh…” Phil intoned, and Dan huffed in annoyance. At this rate Wallis was just going to tune into their conversation, realize they were onto him, and drive them all into a ditch.

Finally, Dan decided to just speak up. Wasn’t it possible the man had just made an honest mistake? Or had misheard them?

“So do you have an end destination in mind, Wallis?” Dan asked, speaking up to be heard over the radio. Wallis immediately reached forward to turn down the music, looking at Dan in the rearview mirror.

“West, right?” he said.

“Uh?”

“You’re going to West, Texas? It’s only about another hour’s drive. Dinky little city but home’s home, I suppose.”

“Oh!” Dan exclaimed, nodding. “Yes I just—I didn’t realize you’d be taking us all the way there, thank you,” he lied.

Now, it didn’t really make sense that they were anywhere  _near_  Texas. After all, they’d traveled from New York in Camp Half-Bloods bus, and a little further on a public bus, and then wandered through a forest for what felt like much too long but surely wasn’t long enough to get them close to Texas. Even knowing this, Dan decided not to question it. The thing about being the son of a Greek goddess meant that sometimes it was just easier to accept things for what they were. Maybe that bus had been magical, had transported them five times as fast as it should’ve when it landed them in that forest. Or perhaps it’d been the forest itself that was magical. There were places—like the underworld—where time and distance didn’t work quite the same way as they did in the real world, and maybe that forest had been the same. Maybe they’d walked through it for an hour but had actually traveled a thousand miles in reality.

Plus, even though Dan had never heard of West, Texas, before, it seemed like a pretty good idea to go. They were supposed to be traveling from sun to set, which, technically, was impossible. The sun didn’t ever truly set, and if they were fast enough, they could actually chase it forever, never letting it set. If they really wanted to think of it so literally, they could chase down Apollo, force him to land his flying chariot that was the sun, and claim that they’d gone from sun to set (which, thinking about it now, Dan was considering doing if this city in Texas didn’t work out).

“You’re letting him take us there?” Emma demanded, after Wallis had turned the radio back up, shaking his head to the beat.

“It seems like a good enough lead to me,” Dan said with a shrug. “‘Three will travel from sun to set’. We said that meant west, but maybe it actually means West, Texas,” he said. “It can’t hurt to check it out.”

Phil leaned in. “Who the fuck names a city West?”

“It’s named after the first postmaster in the city,” Wallis piped up, apparently having been listening. “Funny thing is, it’s not even on the west side of Texas. Closer to the east, really.”

“That’s just ridiculous,” Emma commented, crossing her arms and leaning back against her seat, now seeming perfectly at ease. “And confusing.”

“That it is!” Wallis agreed. “My grandparents grew up there, funnily enough. Otherwise I don’t think I’d even know about it!”

Dan wondered if this was another little nudge from the gods. They ended up hitchhiking with possibly the only person who even knew about West—surely that couldn’t be a coincidence? Or he could just be reading too much into this, running them in circles, but he liked to think that everything would work itself out in the end. It wasn’t worth it, worrying about every little detail along the way and scrutinizing their prophecy to see if it fit. It was much easier to simply believe that everything would go right.

Still, Dan was hoping this last hour on the way to West would go by quickly. He’d been smushed in between Emma and Phil for hours now, and it was starting to get to him. While it was no big deal with Emma, his best friend and the person he’d always felt most comfortable with, it was entirely different being pressed up against Phil. He felt like his arm and thigh were  _burning_  against Phil’s. It didn’t help that Phil sat with his legs kind of spread out, taking up enough room that Dan moving his leg away from him simply wasn’t a choice.

Not to mention that a while back Phil had stretched an arm out behind Dan on the top of the seats. He wasn’t making a move, obviously, having just apologized for coming onto Dan earlier in the day, but it was still enough to make Dan feel a little uncomfortable. Not only because their West escort might glance in the rearview mirror, think they were in a relationship or something, and kick them out (which, come on, could totally happen. This  _was_  the south they were now in, and Dan wasn’t unfamiliar with people like that—he lived with one, after all) but also because he could feel the heat of Phil’s arm behind his neck. It radiated against him, almost making Dan want to lean back into it, maybe lean into Phil’s side. He could imagine how nice it would be to close his eyes and just melt into him, not that he ever would. It was probably due to the cramped space and recycled air that he’d managed to even think like that anyway.

It was also probably because of the cramped space and recycled air that his thoughts managed to circulate back to the time he and Phil had been alone by the fire. It didn’t make any sense—it certainly wasn’t a memory he wanted to dwell on, and yet he found himself reviewing it with excruciating detail.

He remembered Phil being so close to him ( _too_  close to him). He remembered Phil’s hand, hot on his face, and his voice whispering, “Are you sure?” He remembered the hitch in his breath, how tight his stomach had felt. He remembered Phil’s thumb brushing over his lower lip, pulling it down—remembered thinking, just for a moment, what it would be like to kiss somebody. He’d never done it before, something which was viewed as pretty odd for a son of Aphrodite, but he’d never cared. He’d never even wanted it, really—not until that moment, with Phil’s thumb hot on his lip, his face so close, close enough to kiss…

And then his entire insides had jolted, scrambled, and he’d been shooting to his feet to yell and escape. Except his knees had felt weak, his head foggy. His head had been so foggy, in fact, that he’d walked right into a chimera’s trap, resulting in the getting poisoned and almost dying fiasco. It was starting to seem like him almost dying was entirely Phil’s fault. Because… his head must’ve been screwed up with with surprise, from Phil touching him like that. He certainly hadn’t  _liked_  it. And even if he had, it would’ve been because he’d never experienced that kind of touch from anyone else before, his brain having to pay extra close attention to it for, like, learning purposes or some shit. So he could do it again but better to some girl in the future.

Because he was straight. He’d always been straight! It’d never even crossed his mind to question that, and it still wouldn’t. He was very aware of the fact that he liked girls, with their… hair and boobs and shit.

And he was glad he was straight, because he wouldn’t possibly know what to do with himself if he wasn’t. His uncle would’ve killed him by now, probably. And he didn’t even know what his mom would think, goddess of love and all that, knowing her son was loving… incorrectly. No, it was a good thing Dan was the way he was.

“You okay?” Phil said, peering at Dan with a worried look..

“What? No, I’m fine. Why?”

“You just… had this kind of weird look on your face.”

“I’m fine,” Dan said firmly, before looking away from Phil, his face heating. Thank gods no one could read his thoughts. He swallowed uncomfortably, shoving his hands under his thighs, and tried to convince himself that everything was going to turn out all right, tried to convince himself that he was normal.

—

“You go,” Emma said, nudging him with her shoulder and tipping her head towards the front desk. Dan bit his lip.

“You go,” he said to Phil, nudging him with his shoulder and nodding his head towards the front desk.

With a huff, Phil grabbed Dan’s elbow and dragged him towards the desk; Dan snatched Emma’s hand to pull her after them. They stood shoulder to shoulder in front of the glass window, waiting for he woman behind it to look up. She continued typing on the keyboard before her, the keys clacking loudly.

Phil cleared his throat.

The woman—Doris, her name-tag read—looked at them out of the corner of her eye and kept typing. Finally, she pressed the enter button decisively and pushed the keyboard away from her, turning to face them. She folded one hand over the other and raised an eyebrow in question.

“Yes?” she said.

“Um,” Phil said, starting strongly. “We were just, um. We wanted to know how much a room costs for a night?”

"Sixty,” she answered, reaching up with a single finger to push her glasses up her nose. Dan winced, thinking of their empty pockets and long since missing bags.

“Know anywhere we can make sixty bucks in a night?” Dan asked, smiling sheepishly. Doris rolled her eyes, looking at them all a bit more seriously.

“What are you doing out here anyway?” she asked. She gestured towards the windows beside them, outside of which was the almost barren wasteland Wallis had dropped them off in. “No one comes to West,” she elaborated, although it wasn’t really needed.

Dan debated what to say. For some reason, he just didn’t think  _‘we’re on a quest for my mom, Aphrodite’_  would cut it.

“Honestly, we’ve just gotten a bit lost,” Emma took over, forcing Dan to budge up a bit as she sidled in front of Doris. “Our bags were stolen and we were hoping a single night’s stay at this hotel could help us get ourselves sorted out.”

For some reason, this made Doris’s eyes soften in sympathy. Emma had always been the best at sweet-talking people, though Dan had no idea how. Plus, that probably should’ve been his talent, being the son of Aphrodite and all, but he’d always been more likely to trip and stumble over his words rather than persuade anyone to do anything. He was certain even flirting would be a disaster for him, though he’d never even tried to attempt it before.

“You know what?” Doris said suddenly, shaking her head as she reached over to a drawer, pulling out a keycard. “Why don’t you three stay here the night? It’s not like we’re getting much business anyway. You can pay by helping the cleaning staff strip the rooms in the morning.”

“That would be so, so wonderful,” Emma said, smiling hugely. “We can’t thank you enough!”

And with that, Doris gave her the keycard and the three of them were turning away to stand in front of the elevator. The moment it was open, Phil turned to her, his mouth gaping.

“How the hell did you do that?” he demanded, still seeming in disbelief that they were actually going upstairs to a room right now. Emma shrugged, now using the corner of the card to clean out her nails.

“I guess people just like me,” she said easily. The door dinged and they all stepped out, peering at the numbers by the doors and making their way down the hallway to room 103.

“Here,” Dan said, stopping in front of it. Emma slid the card and the door beeped. They all stepped inside and took off their shoes immediately.

“I call first shower!” Emma burst out, before barricading herself in the bathroom, the sound of the shower starting up immediately after.

Dan ended up being the last one to shower. They all realized, after having scrubbed themselves clean and emerged to stare forlornly at the dirty clothes they’d already been wearing for too long, that they didn’t  _want_  to wear their dirty clothes. And much like Phil and Emma had already done, Dan chose one article of clothing to put back on (his underwear) and the rest he scrubbed in the shower with soap before hanging them up to dry.

It was impossible to miss the way Phil’s eyes clung to Dan’s bare skin as he emerged from the bathroom but he ignored it, turning his eyes on Emma instead. Emma was lying under the covers on one bed, idly flipping through the channels on the TV with the remote. Phil was on the other bed. Dan was immediately aware of his predicament.

It’d be rude to climb into Emma’s bed, right? Phil had already apologized for his untowardly actions. If Dan decided to sleep with Emma it might seem like he didn’t trust Phil or was grossed out by him or something, which really wasn’t the case. Emma probably wouldn’t find it too weird if he slept with her—they’d shared beds before on secret sleepovers during camp, but it’d been more than a year since they’d last done that.

With a sigh, Dan resigned himself to climbing into the bed with Phil. It was probably pretty weird for him to sleep in the same bed as a girl at this age anyway.

So Dan walked towards Phil’s bed, avoiding eye contact as he lifted up the covers and shimmied under them. He laid there stiffly, feeling awkward, though Phil seemed completely at ease.

Suddenly, irrationally, Dan wondered if Phil and Emma had talked while he was in the shower. And if so, what about. They wouldn’t talk about  _him_ , would they?

Dan forced his thoughts aside, knowing he was most likely being paranoid, and tried to concentrate on the show about sharks happening on the screen. The narrater had a deep and soothing voice, even as he talked about sharks and deadly attacks with haunting music accompanying it in the background.

It was so comforting, in fact, that Dan slipped right into sleep. He didn’t even have time to tell Phil to make sure he stayed on his side of the bed.


	6. Chapter 6

Phil had a problem.

Well, okay, maybe _Dan_ had a problem—but it was Phil’s problem too, by extension.

He’d always been a light sleeper. So far this had turned out to be a good thing, considering the monsters that enjoyed attacking demigods in the middle of the night and his cabin mates that really couldn’t be trusted for anything ever, but now he was realizing that his inability to sleep deeply was actually a bad thing.

The moment Dan had started fidgeting beside him in the bed his eyes had shot open—Phil sat up immediately, hand already going for his sword propped against the side of the bed and his heart thundering. It’d taken him a moment to calm down, to realize there was nothing around trying to kill him, before he realized what exactly had woken him up.

Dan was face down on the bed, his hips twitching downward kind of pathetically. Heat rose to Phil’s cheeks as he realized what exactly was going on, his mouth dropping open as he watched, stunned.

Now that he was awake, he could hear Dan’s panted breaths, could see his fingers clenched in the pillow by his head. And gods—it was  _wrong_  that it looked so hot, that Phil could imagine Dan clinging to a pillow like that while under him, but it was. He had to shake his head to get rid of the image, to try and figure out what exactly he was going to do in this situation.

Dan was having an… exciting dream… right beside him. Dan, who insisted he was straight but had stared at a water droplet that’d slid from Phil’s neck to the waistband of his sweatpants after he’d stepped out of the bathroom earlier. Dan, who was reserved and a bit temperamental and would probably have no choice but to jump out the window if he ever realized Phil had witnessed this.

Really, Phil was too good of a person. A lesser man might’ve just laid back down and pretended to be asleep, or possibly have woken his bed companion to stop them from continuing, but Phil just stood up and crossed the room, sinking into the uncomfortable chair there. And so he ended up waiting it out. He thought it wouldn’t be a problem, that Dan would either come or the dream would end, but it took a bit longer than he’d been expecting. Not  _too_  long, but long enough that Phil was wondering what kind of stamina this guy had anyway.

It really did end soon enough, though. Dan’s hips stuttered to a stop against the bed, his breath hitching, and then he was finally still. It was then that Phil finally returned to the bed to sleep, cursing Dan for interrupting it in the first place. And he didn’t envy Dan, either, having to wake up with that mess in his pants. Still, he was really too tired to care anymore, so he let his eyes fall shut and went back to sleep.

—

When Phil woke the second time it was thankfully morning. Soft morning light filtered in through the curtains across the room. On the bed opposite his, Emma snored loudly, her mouth wide open. And in his bed, Dan slept on, blissfully unaware that he was almost completely on top of Phil.

 _You have got to be kidding me,_  Phil grumbled inwardly, lifting his head up to look at Dan. His head was resting on Phil’s chest, one leg thrown over his waist and both of his arms encircling Phil. For someone who was apparently straight, Dan was quite the adventurous bedtime partner. Wet dreams and cuddling with a man all in one night? Wild.

Phil ended up having to curse his niceness. He was all too aware that waking up Dan would only result in his embarrassment—he’d be forced to acknowledge the fact that Phil knew he’d been clinging to him, whereas if Dan woke up on his own, he could sneak away and pretend it’d never happened. So yes, him staying in bed and continuing to lie with Dan, his own arm wrapped securely around his waist, was purely of selfless reasons. It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Dan felt kind of warm and wonderful against him. Nothing to do with the fact that he’d never really gotten to be this close to another person before, and it felt great.

 

And so he continued to lay there, wrapped up with Dan, for almost an entire hour. It was apparent that Dan was a heavy sleeper. Phil was almost worried about how the hell he managed to make it through so many nights at camp, but maybe Aphrodite’s kids didn’t waste all their time pulling stupid pranks on each other like filling each other’s beds with ants when they weren’t looking.

It was lucky that he had Phil on this quest. If he was this heavy a sleeper, and Emma was as well (since apparently her own snores weren’t enough to wake her up), then without him they’d be toast if they were to get attacked in the middle of the night. Granted, Phil hoped he was never attacked that way—he kind of hoped he was never attacked at all, really—but he was going to have a much better time defending himself when he was actually  _awake_.

When Dan finally started to wake up, Phil just shut his eyes and let Dan figure it all out on his own.

First, Dan let out a little sleepy breath, his head turning slightly and burying itself deeper into Phil’s chest, which was probably when Dan realized he wasn’t exactly lying on the bed. Phil felt Dan’s head lift off his chest then, slightly, before he let out a quiet sound of distress. He immediately went about untangling himself from Phil (Phil had released his own grip on Dan nearly ten minutes ago, fearing this would come soon), sliding an arm out from under Phil’s shoulder and pulling his hips away from where they’d been pressed against Phil.

In moments, Dan had managed to move completely away from Phil in a way that would’ve woken any person that wasn’t fucking  _dead_. Honestly, one would think that Dan would’ve performed that whole evacuation a bit more stealthily when he was so afraid of getting caught. It’d been  _difficult_  pretending to be asleep through all Dan’s movements and the bouncing of the bed.

Finally, Dan stood up and retreated immediately to the bathroom for a horrible morning surprise. And it was horrible, if the subsequent sound of running water was any indication. Either way, Phil felt safe in pretending to wake up after another fifteen minutes or so, although Emma continued to sleep like a corpse. Phil would’ve been worried if she weren’t still producing that ungodly sound with her face.

 

“Good morning,” Phil finally greeted when Dan emerged from the bathroom sometime later.

 

“Morning,” Dan grunted. He immediately made his way to the chair across the room, where he then sat and glowered. He muttered something and his giant warhammer appeared in his hands, which he laid carefully across his knees.

 

“Expecting someone?” Phil asked in surprise, and Dan just glared at him.

 

“We shouldn’t have been so lax last night,” he answered. “Any monster could’ve snuck into this hotel. We should start sleeping in shifts.”

 

“That’s true,” Phil agreed, and Dan’s shoulders relaxed slightly, as if he’d expected Phil to call him out. Still, for the rest of the day Dan was pretty cold to him, likely residual embarrassment from his unhappy awakening. It especially sucked after he’d assumed he was making some progress, having saved Dan’s life and helped his recovering-poisoned body traipse through the forest and made him laugh a couple of times in Wallis’s truck. It was nice, making Dan laugh. His entire face lit up and his eyes brightened and it was impossible not to know he was a son of Aphrodite. How could he not realize how beautiful he was?

 

Still, Phil figured it was only polite of him to give Dan some space. He was clearly trying to think through everything that had happened that morning—hopefully coming to the realization that he was gay (it really was a mixture of sad and annoying, watching him be in such denial about himself). And so after Emma woke up an hour or so later, her hair an absolute mess on top of her head, Phil mentioned something about scouting out the area.

There were a few run-down looking gas stations around and hopefully he’d be able to steal some supplies from them, seeing as they didn’t have any money. It obviously wasn’t in any way ideal, but Phil looked like a nice enough kid that hopefully no one would grow suspicious of him looking around a bit. Plus, Dan clearly needed the space, and Phil was willing to give it—especially if it was going to help Dan accept himself. Phil had absolutely no doubt that whatever Dan had dreamed about that night had included a boy.

When he mentioned this to Dan and Emma (the gas station plan, not the Dan dreaming about boys thing), Dan readily agreed while Emma thought it over, trying to gauge how dangerous it could be for him to be on his own. Phil managed to convince her— _I’m a son of **ares**_ —and then he was on his way, his fellow demigods having promised to get him something to eat from the free continental breakfast the motel served.

Phil nodded to the woman at the desk as he passed a few minutes later—Doris, he thought her name was?—and continued out of the hotel and onto the street.

They’d ended up in a run-down, barren kind of town, which was probably to be expected when going to a city you’d never heard of named after a cardinal direction. A gas station was conveniently located on the corner across from the hotel they’d stayed in. A large sign rose high in the air, declaring the gas station’s name and the prices of gas—several lights had burned out.

Phil made his way towards it, his hands shoved into his pockets. His sword was slung over his back, though he wasn’t worried about mortals seeing it. Their minds always came up with excuses of their own—to them it would look like a baseball bat or something.

A little further down the street was a run-down looking grocery store. It was dull and the parking lot before it was small, only a few cars scattered throughout it, all looking close to breaking down.

Phil walked past the one person outside the gas station: a large, muscled man filling up his bike. He wore sunglasses, making it impossible to tell if he was watching Phil as he passed. Still, Phil ignored him just in case—other than monsters, sometimes demigods just had to beware mortals in general. Sometimes they could be as bad as the creatures from Tartarus.

A bell rung as Phil pulled open the gas station door, alerting the cashier to Phil’s presence. It was a worn out looking teenager, fitting in pretty well with this town, and he nodded at Phil in greeting, appearing exhausted. Phil raised a hand in return.

He wandered up and down the aisles, scanning them all critically, and ended up grabbing them all a toothbrush, casually tucking them all into his back pocket. He continued doing this with small essentials—toothpaste, deodorant, gummy bears—followed with things less essential, like different varieties of food. The things that he could manage to hide in his clothes wasn’t too plentiful, maybe enough to last them a few days, but ultimately they’d have to stoop to stealing again.

Finally, Phil made his way up to the counter with a soda and a candy bar, plopping them down on the counter. The cashier rang him up and droned, “Three-seventy.”

Phil made a show of patting down his pockets, wincing when he “realized” he’d forgotten his wallet.

“Dammit,” he said, frowning up at the cashier. “I forgot my wallet.”

“Uhh…”

“I’ll come back later,” Phil said, smiling sheepishly.

“Alright,” the cashier said with a nod, and Phil waved as he retreated from the gas station, pockets now full of needed goods.

He had only just made it a little ways from the gas station when he heard a weird, scraping sound somewhere around him. He frowned, taking a step forward and peering into the alley beside him.

“Hello?” he called out. There was a little girl down there, crouched down and poking at something on the ground with a stick. She turned, and—her face was just a mouth.

“Oh fuck,” Phil cursed, pulling his sword out from over his shoulder as she turned and started sprinting towards him. Where her other facial features should’ve been was just a gaping hole filled with razor sharp teeth. Phil had no idea what monster she was—he wasn’t always the best at studying up, and old monsters were evolving into new monsters every day—but he was aware that she was fucking terrifying, so.

He jumped out of the way as she barreled past, spitting and growled. She was speedy but small—it should be easy to stick his sword through her and watch her explode into a cloud of dust. Although it really was unfortunate that she looked like a little kid other than her face.

“What  _are_  you?” Phil demanded. The girl answered without words, just more growling, angry sounds, and Phil groaned in annoyance. “You’d think you’d learn to speak with that giant mouth of yours.”

He raised his sword to slice the monster in two, only to stumble forward when something else launched itself at his back. Loud hissing exploded in his ear, and Phil tried to elbow the second creature off him. It clung on, and the first monster was approaching him, crouched low and dangerous. And then another one emerged from behind a dumpster, and another turned the corner of the alley, all slinking towards him.

“Oh fuck,” Phil repeated.

—

Fighting the monsters was a losing battle. There were too many of them and too little of him, all breathing hot, stinking breath towards his face which honestly didn’t help with his fighting. He’d finally managed to kill the one on his back, coughing as he choked on its dust, and hacked into a second one before he realized how hopeless his situation was.

More had been coming, spilling out of the dumpster and climbing out of a sewer, making Phil wonder just what the fuck was going on in West, Texas. He’d managed to think that it’d be a pretty dumb way to die, eaten alive by faceless children, before he’d finally been overwhelmed. Instead of eating him, they’d choked him, what felt like hundreds of tiny, grubby hands squeezing his neck, making his vision go black. He’d heard a motorcycle roar past, probably that mortal from the gas station, blissfully unaware of the kid being choked to death by teeth-face monsters, before passing out from lack of air.

And so, logically, he should be very dead. Or at  _least_  very kidnapped. Instead, upon waking he found himself right back in his hotel room. He would think it’d all been a dream if not for the stench still clinging in his nose and the various scrapes all over his body, either from teeth or nails.

So how did he get back to his hotel room? And where were Dan and Emma? And weren’t they about to get kicked out of the hotel anyway? Doris had only promised them one night.

Phil had just managed to get to his feet, pausing at the dizzy feeling that overcame him, when Dan and Emma burst through the door, each holding a backpack.

“What happened?” Phil asked immediately, and they both stared at him for a moment.

“When did you get back?” Dan finally asked.

“You mean… it wasn’t you who saved me from those… things?”

“What things?”

“Monsters. I was in the alley—there were a lot of them, I—you really didn’t bring me back here?” he asked in disbelief.

“No…?”

“Are you okay?” Emma asked, frowning. Her eyes trailed over his skin, cataloging the injuries from his fight.

“Well I’m fine  _now_ , but who saved me?”

“And who paid for our hotel room?” Dan added.

Now it was Phil’s turn to be confused. “What?”

“We were just called down to the front desk. We assumed we were about to be booted but apparently a man claiming to be our father paid for our room,” Dan explained.

“And gave us these,” Emma added, holding up a bag. She tossed it at Phil, a second one already secure on his back. Phil immediately started digging through the bag, disbelief fighting against relief as he saw the contents. Clean clothes, soap, a toothbrush—

“Wait a minute,” Phil said, suddenly patting his pockets. They were empty—all of them. Sure, he could’ve dropped them in the fight, but  _all_  of them? Only for them to be replaced with something much better?

“You said you were fighting monsters?” Emma said, coming to sit on the bed across from him. “Do you think it was your hour of greatest need?”

“Does it matter? Aphrodite already saved Dan—that was the prophecy.”

They were all quiet, clouded with confusion. Gods didn’t normally just do mortals favors. Usually there was something it it for them, an ulterior motive for as to why they would bother with helping a silly demigod. But what?

Either Aphrodite hadn’t really helped them back in that forest clearing or a second god had helped them today despite it.

They ended up deciding to just let it go, the logistics of how and why they were suddenly safe wasn’t really a priority for them to be concerned about. They still had much so to figure out and their time was better spent on doing that. They couldn’t spend all their time in the hotel room, anyway, even if the mysterious father figure had paid for them to stay another night.

In the end, they did decide to stay a second night, because it was paid for and they didn’t have a real plan of where else to go next anyway. Tomorrow they could explore the town, see what it had in store for them, and after that they could figure out what their next plan of action would be.

Before bed that night, Dan specifically reminded Phil that they should keep watch, and Phil nodded, managing to not roll his eyes. He even offered to take the first watch, ending up sitting in the chair and staring tiredly at the TV, none of the programs even relatively interesting.

It was in the second hour of his watch when he heard a quiet tapping. He sat up straight immediately, looking every which way for the source of the noise. He finally tracked it down—the balcony. Currently there was a curtain pulled over it, blocking them from view, but what could possibly be out there, tapping on their window?

A shiver wracked through Phil at the thought of those child-monster things waiting out there, but he figured they wouldn’t bother knocking first. They’d probably just storm through the entire hotel entirely, ripping apart anyone they found along the way.

And so, feeling very apprehensive but forcing himself to be brave, he tip-toed across the room and twitched the curtain aside, peeking out. He nearly yelled in surprise, coming face to face with someone trying to look in. And then his mouth went dry, his eyes wide, as he took in the beautiful woman standing on their balcony. She wasn’t dressed for the weather, donned in a strappy dress with tall, clunky heels despite the chilly night air. She smiled, seeing Phil looked at her, and Phil hastened to open the door and scramble out onto the balcony.

“Good of you to join me,” she said, leaning back on the bar and raising an eyebrow at Phil.

“You’re Aphrodite,” Phil guessed, and her smile widened as she nodded.

“You recognize me?”

“Not at all.”

Aphrodite nodding knowledgeably. “I appear different to everyone that views me.”

Phil shook his head, trying to break the daze that Aphrodite’s very presence put on him. “What are you doing here?” he managed to ask, and Aphrodite’s face turned serious.

“You need to help my son,” she said.

“Er—didn’t you already do that? In the forest?”

Aphrodite scoffed. “That was nothing, just a bit of motherly love.” She laughed. “Imagine  _me_  letting my own son die without first being in love! A tragic death death without a tragic heartbreak? That’s not romantic at all.”

“Um. Yeah, I guess,” Phil said. Death didn’t really seem romantic to him anyway, but he didn’t bother arguing. Only Aphrodite could manage to delude herself into appreciating death. Oh, and Hades too, obviously.

“So you’ll help him?” Aphrodite prompted.

“I still don’t know what I need to help him  _with_ ,” Phil pointed out.

“Oh, like you don’t  _know_. You’ve been watching him all this time—you have a major crush on him, obviously. You can’t not know what he needs help with.”

“I don’t have a crush on him,” Phil said immediately.

Aphrodite scoffed. “If you think you’re just doing this for that stupid bet then you’re wrong.”

“You know about that!?” Phil gasped, half afraid he was about to get zapped right where he stood. Aphrodite ignored him.

“You need to help him,” she repeated. “He’s unaccepting of who he really is—won’t even admit it to himself—because of how he grew up. Because of  _who_  he grew up with,” she added with a roll of her eyes. Did she really dislike Dan’s father that much?

“I still don’t understand how I’m supposed to help him,” Phil pointed out.

“Just keep doing what you’ve been doing,” she instructed. “But make sure he knows that his feelings are okay.”

“So he  _does_  like me!” Phil exclaimed, before clearing his throat and looking away awkwardly. “Not that it… matters.”

“You’re not an idiot, Phil Lester,” Aphrodite said. “So stop acting like one.”


	7. Chapter 7

Sleeping in shifts was exhausting. Definitely worth it, but exhausting.

After waking up to the realization that he’d had a wet dream the night before, Dan had done whatever he could to make sure he didn’t have to spend an entire night sleeping in a bed with Phil again. Just thinking about his dream made his cheeks heat, the skin on skin, the lips on his neck, his hand buried into suspiciously short hair…

It was undeniable, the hard, smooth chest he’d felt pressed against his, the Adam’s apple he’d kissed, the erection he’d rutted against. It’d been a  _guy_  in his dream and Dan was having trouble coming up for any kind of excuse for that. He’d liked it in the moment (enough to make a mess of his pants, anyway) and didn’t know how to go about denying it any longer.

He was gay.

And nobody could ever know.

It would be Dan’s terrible secret to bare. He’d keep it hidden, keep it tucked away where no one could ever realize its existence. Gods, how could this have happened to him? Every time his uncle had mouthed off against “the gays”, every time he’d scowled and gotten a twist in his mouth towards anything even hinting at homosexuality, Dan had thought he’d felt indignant solely on their behalf.

He’d always been an understanding and accepting person, of course he wanted everyone to be safe and respected and loved. But now that it was him? Now that he was the problem? It just felt like his whole life was going to shit.

And now that he’d finally realized he was gay, he felt stupid for having ignored it for so long. Deep down, all along, he’d probably always known it. He must’ve, having blatantly ignored every girl everyone thought was cute or tried to set him up with, having shrunken away from the idea of even looking at a guy in any way other than a friendly one.

He knew it was stupid, too. He didn’t hate Phil for being obviously not straight, didn’t think he was disgusting or gross or horrible or any of that nonsense. So why did he feel all of that about himself? Why did it feel like something that was never going to be okay for him? Was it simply because he was the son of Aphrodite? Because of the fact that maybe she would disapprove and want him to love in a more… traditional way?

Well, he could do that. Or he could pretend to, at least. Plus if he pretended hard enough, it just might work out. He certainly couldn’t ever let his uncle know—the mere thought of him finding out left Dan with goosebumps all along his skin.

It was in this same cycle of endless thought, of fear and hatred and unhappiness, that he went through during his shift of not sleeping. He’d been the last shift, Phil having taken Emma’s bed when he woke her up for hers, and now it was the early hours of the morning, soft light just barely beginning to filter in through the edges of the curtain.

It was almost a relief when Phil woke up not too long after that, groaning in his sleep and rubbing tired eyes. Dan tried not to watch him, but it was impossible. His shirt had ridden up in his sleep, leaving much of his stomach bare. And his boxers were riding low upon his hips, letting Dan’s eyes scour all over his exposed hipbones, up to his navel, back down and up and up—to his eyes, which were open, looking at Dan.

Heat exploded throughout Dan’s entire face but he tried to ignore it, tried to pretend like he hadn’t been devouring Phil with his eyes, hadn’t been wanting to touch him all over, to feel his warm, smooth skin under his fingers.

“Morning,” Phil croaked, having maneuvered himself onto a propped elbow. Dan stayed silent, just picked up his hand and waved. He’d been pretty rude to Phil ever since waking up from that embarrassment, and he felt a little bad about it now, knowing Phil had been attacked and overwhelmed by some kind of monster while Dan was busy sulking and deciding he hated him.

Dan felt his eyes follow Phil on their own accord as he stood up and stumbled into the bathroom. When he emerged minutes later, he raised his eyebrows, gesturing over his shoulder. “Breakfast?”

Dan couldn’t say no to food. His stomach had been complaining for the past hour or so, thinking it was actually breakfast time after he’d been awake for so long, and so he clambered to his feet and stretched, groaning as he finally stood after having been curled up in that chair all morning.

Phil pulled on a pair of sweatpants while Dan grabbed the keycard and then they were walking through the hotel halls together. They didn’t say anything but somehow the silence felt comfortable, possibly just because of the lingering sleepiness surrounding them both.

Dan, having had the free continental breakfast the day before with Emma, led the way, turning away from the main lobby and down a short hallway, at the end of which was a small cafeteria of sorts. There, he and Phil split up from each other, Dan towards the small packages of cereal and containers of milk and Phil towards the waffle machine. They reconvened at a small, rickety table, where Phil poured entirely too much syrup onto his waffle and hummed with the first bite.

“Oh man,” he said. “I don’t eat these enough.”

“You could eat them at camp whenever you wanted,” Dan pointed out. He actually pointed his spoon at Phil as he said this, a drop of milk splattering onto the table in between them. They both ignored it.

One of the best things about Camp Half-Blood where the plates, the endless assortment of foods that couldn’t appear. It didn’t make sense for Phil not to enjoy waffles whenever he wanted.

“It’s not the same,” Phil finally said, shrugging simply. “My mom only ever let me have them on special occasions.” This seemed a bit strict to Dan, but maybe it made sense. His mother  _had_  ended up having Phil with Ares, after all.

“Is now a special occasion?” Dan ended up asking, frowning as he watched Phil pour even more syrup onto his waffle.

“Sure it is,” Phil said with a shrug, looking up at Dan with a smirk. “It’s our first date!”

Dan felt his mouth drop open, felt his cheeks go red, as anger and embarrassment coursed through him like—

Phil kicked him in the shin. “I’m  _kidding_. I just wanted a waffle, okay?”

“Whatever,” Dan muttered, looking back down at his cereal and mushing all the pieces under the milk. They ate the rest of their meal in relative silence, mainly just commenting on the people they saw, pointing out weird things about them and making up stories about why they were here in West, Texas.

Dan ended up grabbing a second serving of cereal to bring to Emma before he and Phil started heading back to their room. A man, tall and (Dan admitted grudgingly) handsome, was standing a little ways away from the elevator. He was talking on his phone, and as he turned to walk towards the main lobby, a scrap of paper fell out of his hand and fluttered to the floor.

“Hey!” Phil called out immediately, the good samaritan that he was. He was already running towards the paper, picking it up as he said, “You dropped thi—!” His voice trailed off as he read the paper, the man already outside the hotel’s front doors. Dan came closer and peered over Phil’s shoulder at the paper.

_Meet me in the abandoned warehouse, demigods._

“That’s a trap,” Dan decided.

“Probably.”

Dan scoffed. “Most definitely. Let’s just ignore it.”

Phil was biting his lip, looking as if he was going to suggest not ignoring the ominous paper a mysterious stranger had dropped, somehow knowing the two of them were demigods. Dan groaned, wondering why nothing could ever just be simple.

—

It was a trial, waking Emma up before the sun was even completely above the horizon, something she vehemently believed in never doing. It was even more of a trial trying to convince her to go to an abandoned warehouse because a stranger told them to.

“That’s like, definitely something that’s going to get us killed,” Emma had decided right off the bat.

“I completely agree,” Dan had said. “But Phil made a few good points…”

And he had. They didn’t have any other leads anyway, and they’d only decided to stay an extra night in the first place because they’d been planning to actually look around for some clues (and because their room was conveniently paid for).

And so, a disgruntled Emma munching on dry cereal and a much too cheerful Phil leading the way, they walked down the crumbling streets of West, looking for the abandoned warehouse.

“There can’t be more than  _one_  abandoned warehouse in this town,” Phil reasoned, standing on his tiptoes where he stood on the sidewalk as if he could peer over the surrounding buildings right into the warehouse they were searching for.

“Did you say abandoned warehouse?” an old man croaked from directly behind them, having just exited a convenience store they were passing. “Why, there’s only one of them in this town!”

“Convenient!” Emma cheered. “All right, where?”

The old man pointed a shaking finger down the street. “Turn left at the next street and you’ll see it right up ahead.”

With newly equipped directions, they easily found the warehouse. Afraid they would get yelled at for trespassing, they attempted to sneak through the deserted land, ducking behind the fence and strange metal structures scattered throughout the yard. They didn’t get caught, either because no one was around to see them doing it or no one cared enough to say anything.

The door screeched and rust rained from the hinges as they pulled it open, stepping into the dark and dank smelling building.

“Creepy,” Phil commented.

“What did you expect?” Emma scoffed. “It’s an abandoned warehouse and we were invited here by a man who’s probably actually a monster.”

“Well you don’t need to say it like that,” Phil muttered. Dan ignored their bickering and stepped further inside, flicking on a flashlight that’d been stored in his pack. Its beam swept over cobwebs in the corners and long since out-of-order machines surrounding them, all covered with a thick layer of dust. Visible through the dust on the floor were footprints, leading off deeper into the warehouse.

“Ten drachmas says we find a skeleton,” Emma bet in a whisper, her own flashlight joining Dan’s, lighting the path in front of them.

“Nah,” Phil whispered back. “Not enough people come to West to die here.”

“Not enough people come to West to  _find_  the people who die here,” Emma countered, and Dan shushed them.

“Ten drachmas says you two get us killed and I annoy you for the rest of eternity in the fields of Asphodel,” Dan hissed.

Emma scoffed. “Asphodel?” she demanded. “We’re totally getting into Elysium.”

There were three different levels to the underworld. After death, every mortal found themselves there, waiting in line to get judged to decide where they would spend the rest of their ghostly existence. Evil people went to the fields of punishment, where their souls suffered for all eternity doing horrible tasks. Ordinary people, living lives full of neither super good nor super bad deeds, ended up in the fields of Asphodel. They pretty much forgot about their existence entirely—just drifting around, thinking and doing nothing, resolved into mere facets of their past selves. But heroes, people who’d done extraordinary good, got to go to Elysium, which was all sunshine and gardens and living but like, while dead.

“Sure,” Dan said sarcastically, before peering around a corner. The next hallway was littered with more broken objects and footsteps leading away from them.

He opened his mouth to say something about how he’d never done anything extraordinary in his life and would surely end up in Asphodel, when a giant cage fell from the ceiling and trapped them all.

“I  _knew_  it!” Emma groaned.

Dan huffed through his nose as Phil said, “You didn’t  _know_ ,” and resigned himself to being captured.

—

“You guys fell right for that,” the man before them commented, breathless. He’d just dragged the entire cage, the three of them still inside, into the middle of the room.

“ _I_  said we shouldn’t have come,” Emma said loudly, and Phil scoffed.

“What do you want from us?” Dan asked. The man turned to look at him, his eyes trailing Dan from head to toe. He sighed.

“Well, I’m  _supposed_  to stop you guys from getting any closer to the bow,” the man said. He waved his hand flippantly. “Kill you, or something.”

“Supposed to?” Dan questioned, clinging to what little bit of hope they seemed to have. The man shrugged again.

“It’s a lot of work, you know?” he said, and Dan swore he could feel his eyes on him again, tracing him up and down. “And I’m not really getting anything out of it.”

Emma glanced at Dan, her eyes wide. The look was obvious. It was the kind of look that said:  _this monster isn’t all that enthusiastic about killing us and we can probably get out of it if we talk smoothly enough_.

Dan turned to share this very look with Phil, but Phil’s face was saying something entirely different. He was flicking his eyes from the monster to Dan and back again, and then raising his eyebrows twice in quick succession.

“What?” Dan whispered.

Emma was already trying to sweet talk their way out of the cage. “That’s ridiculous!” she exclaimed. “You’re not even going to get anything for doing all the hard work?”

Dan was looking around the room, trying to assess their chances of escape. Even if they got out of the cage they’d still have to escape from the bars that’d fallen to block all the exits.

“I know!” the monster (who really didn’t even look like a monster, just a normal, tall guy) answered. “Like, that’s a bit selfish, right? I only agreed because if you say no to a god they’d smite you.”

“I totally get it,” Emma said, nodding. “We go on quests for gods all the time—no clue what would happen if we said no. Nobody’s dumb enough to try.”

“Exactly!” the man roared. “Man, you guys aren’t so bad. I’m Jeremy, by the way.”

“Phil,” answered Phil, immediately. “And this here is Dan. Son of Aphrodite.” He pushed Dan forward as he said this, almost like he was presenting Dan to Jeremy.

Jeremy smiled at Dan and, feeling confused, Dan tentatively smiled back.

“Who is this god that’s after us, anyway?” Emma scoffed. “You’d think that, being as powerful as they are, they’d have the gall to come after us themselves.”

“Right?!” Jeremy said, shaking his head with a laugh. “I don’t know, though. I mean, if I told you…”

“The god would be pissed if they found out?” Emma said with a sigh.

“Yeah.” Jeremy shook his head. “They’d totally skin me alive or something. But… I can’t kill you guys,” he said, smiling ruefully. “You’re all so nice!” As he said this, his eyes flitted to Dan again. Dan shifted in place, uncomfortably aware of his own skin.

“Maybe you could let us out?” Phil suggested, so boldly that Dan wanted to smack him. They needed to be subtle! “We could sit down and try to think of some solution that benefits us all,” he said with a casual shrug, as if the outcome of this request didn’t really matter to him.

“You know what,” Jeremy said, “that’s a pretty good idea.” With that, he stepped forward and ripped a bar off the cage with his bare hand, creating a hole large enough for them to squeeze through. And so they did—Dan slipped out first, and he stood awkwardly a few feet in front of Jeremy as his friends joined him.

“Would you look at the time!” Jeremy suddenly exclaimed, examining a fancy watch on his wrist. “Alright, you guys wait here; I’ll go get us all some breakfast. You guys like Subway? That’s like, all they have in this town.” They weren’t hungry, having all just eaten themselves, and none of them would want Subway for breakfast anyway, but they said nothing as Jeremy strode across the room to leave. He momentarily bent a few bars to slip through them and waved goodbye as he walked through the warehouse towards the main entrance.

The moment his footsteps had receded entirely, Phil turned to Dan. “You need to flirt with him,” he said immediately. Dan spluttered something incoherent, his voice suddenly going a much higher pitch.

“Did that cage  _hit your head_  when it fell?” he demanded. “Why in the world would I flirt with him!?”

“Phil’s right,” Emma said seriously. “It could be our only way to persuade him into telling us which god is commanding him.”

“You’re both insane,” Dan decided. “I’m not—I’m not  _flirting_  with him. He’s a guy! Plus  _Emma_  should do it, if anyone. I don’t even know how to flirt!” The excuses tumbled out of him so quickly he was sure one of them would latch on and change the mind of his friends.

Phil just shook his head. “That man is gay,” Phil said, pointing his finger towards the corridor Jeremy had disappeared through. “ _And_  he was eyeing you up that whole time—that’s probably why he even let us out of the cage. He wants to get in your pants.”

“I’m not letting him in my pants!” Dan squeaked, thinking of the way Jeremy had snapped an entire bar off their cage. He took a step back from Phil, almost afraid he might actually try to wrestle his pants off.

“Of course not,” Emma readily agreed. “You just need to make him  _think_  you will.”

“Have you forgotten the fact that I can’t flirt?”

Phil waved him off. “You’re a son of Aphrodite,” he said. “You have charm, even if you don’t realize it. It comes naturally to you.”

Dan bit his lip. He really, really didn’t want to do this. He didn’t want to flirt with a  _guy_ , didn’t want to encourage this crush that Jeremy apparently had on him. But… they  _did_  need to find out which god had stolen his mom’s bow in the first place. This could very well be their only chance to do so.

“Fine,” Dan finally snapped, crossing his arms over his chest to hide how uncomfortable he really felt. “I’ll do it. But you two’ll owe me for eternity.”

“Deal!” Emma said, now smiling hugely. “This’ll be great.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for kind of non-con - it's not sex, but there is some brainwashed making out going on

“Bon appetite!”

Phil shoved Dan onto the floor next to Jeremy, who had set the subway bag down on the ground and promptly sat on the floor in front of it. Dan grabbed a sub just to occupy his hands, trying to ignore the pointed looks both Emma and Phil kept giving him.

Gods, this was so stupid!

Dan had never flirted with anyone in his life, how did they expect him to be able to do it with this monster now, when their lives actually depended on it? And fuck what Phil had said about natural Aphrodite charm—Dan doubted that even existed. He was probably going to end up accidentally mortally insulting Jeremy, resulting in him reaching over and popping Dan’s head off or something.

At a pointed look from Phil, Dan scooted just the tiniest bit to the left, letting his leg rest against Jeremy’s with a glower. Emma gave him a subtle thumbs up. Jeremy pressed his leg more firmly against Dan’s.

Clearing his throat, Dan decided it was time to officially start this flirting session. “So,” he said, and then he added, “Jeremy,” after thinking of some magazine he’d read once that said people liked it when you said their name a lot. “Um. Are you from Tennessee?”

Phil dropped his head into his hand, looking pained.

“What?” said Jeremy. “No, no. I’m from Tartarus.”

“Oh.”

“Anyway,” Phil said loudly, drawing Jeremy’s attention to himself. “Let’s not talk business just yet, huh?”

“Sure,” Jeremy said easily, leaning back on one hand and holding his sub in the other. Dan didn’t doubt that avoiding the topic of how he was supposed to be killing them was probably an easy decision for him.

“Got anyone special in your life?” Phil prompted. “A lady, perhaps?”

Dan felt himself shrink into his own skin. A mantra of  _I hate this I hate this I hate this_  circled through his head.

Jeremy laughed loudly. “Not right now,” he said. “And definitely not a lady,” he added, his voice lowered a bit and his mouth twisted into a grin. 

“Oh, really?” Phil hummed. And then he looked at Dan with wide eyes and vey obviously angled his head towards Jeremy. Dan rolled his eyes at him—he could see the very non-subtle opening for himself, thanks.

“Me neither,” Dan said flatly. Emma glared at him.  _Act better!_  she mouthed. “And… same.”

Jeremy grinned right at Dan then, and Dan fixed what felt like a weak, watery smile on his face in response.

Their meal passed with easy conversation, thanks to Jeremy being able to jump from topic to topic effortlessly. Dan laughed loudly at all his jokes, leaning in closer as he did. It appeared to be working, as Jeremy smiled brightly whenever he managed to make Dan laugh. Soon enough, Dan found almost their entire sides pressed together, Jeremy’s arm stretched behind him, his face turned towards Dan as he spoke.

Emma and Phil kept giving him encouraging nods and secretive thumbs-up, but all he really wanted was to scoot away and curl into a ball. Worse than the fact that he was actually having to do this was the fact that—though he would never admit it—he wasn’t even having too horrible of a time. Only after Jeremy was pressed against him, his shoulder slightly behind Dan’s, did Dan realize that he really didn’t mind being this close to a man. He wouldn’t mind pressing closer, even. And Jeremy smelled good, like  _man_ , and Dan didn’t want to have to acknowledge this part of himself! It was pretty hard not to acknowledge when he was actively encouraging it, however. He was most certainly going to blame his horrible quest-partners for the loss of sleep he would probably end up having over this.

“It wasn’t until recently that I was able to create little inventions of my own, though,” Jeremy was saying when Dan tuned back in.

“Really?” Dan said automatically, his brain having going into like, flirting autopilot. After he’d starting doing it, he really had fallen into a rhythm, everything he said coming easier to him. It was like he knew which things to say to make Jeremy’s eyes light up, to make him smile. (And gods, Dan kind of wished he couldn’t). “That’s so cool!”

“You think so?”

“Oh, definitely,” Dan agreed. 

A pause. And then, “You wanna see one?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Dan could see Emma and Phil nodding enthusiastically, apparently not even bothering to think about how this could be A Trap Part Two, where the monster led he poor innocent son of Aphrodite away to murder him. 

“Of course!” Dan agreed, pushing thoughts of being led away to die aside. At least if he got brutally murdered his friends would be forced to feel guilty about it. He followed Jeremy across the room and slipped between the bars with him as he bent them apart, shooting a look back at his friends when Jeremy immediately put them back in place.

“It’s right down here…” Jeremy was saying, as he slipped his hand into Dan’s and began leading him down the hallway. Dan finally turned away from his friends, wrapping his finger’s tighter around Jeremy’s hand and letting himself be pulled through the abandoned warehouse. They passed several rooms with closed doors and turned down different, identical looking hallways before finally coming to a stop in a hallway that looked just like all the others, except this one had a small table in it.

“It’s nothing, really,” Jeremy explained, stepping forward and scooping his invention off the table. It was small enough to fit in his hand, but when he opened it Dan saw what looked like a bug in the center of his palm—a bug that stood up and inched along his hand.

Dan sucked in a breath through his nose, afraid this bug was going to leap at him and bite him or something, but Jeremy just laughed. “It’s not real,” he said, turning the bug upside down to expose the mechanics visible from its underbelly. “I made it.”

“Oh,” Dan said intelligently. “That’s awesome, actually. What does it do?”

“It’s a love bug,” Jeremy said simply. His eyes looked intense, and Dan frowned, opened his mouth to ask what that meant, when Jeremy grabbed his hand and placed the machine in his grasp.

Dan’s mind cleared, the fog he hadn’t even know was there drifting away, leaving a few certain things glaringly obvious. The first thing was what to do with the bug: it seemed common sense to lift up his shirt and place it on his skin. It skulled over his stomach and onto his back, climbing up his spine and then  _latching_  in between his shoulder blades. Sharp points—its legs?—dug deep into the skin of his back, but Dan didn’t mind.

The other thing that was now obvious was that he was in love with Jeremy. It was one thing to pretend to flirt with an enemy, but realizing he was actually in love with him was completely different. He could barely comprehend how he hadn’t realized it earlier, or even when he first laid eyes on him, but he was glad he could tell now.

He blinked a few times, clearing the last dregs of fog from his mind, and looked up at Jeremy. He smiled shyly. Gods, how had he gotten so lucky as to meet someone like him? And for Jeremy to like him  _back_?

“Hi,” Dan managed, a giggle bubbling up in his throat immediately afterwards, and Jeremy grinned at him. Dan loved making him smile.

“All good?” Jeremy asked.

“Yeah,” Dan sighed. And then his feet were  _begging_  him to step closer, to get nearer to Jeremy, and so he did. He inched forward one step, and then another, until finally he was close enough to touch. He looked up at the man he loved with pleading eyes, begging him to touch him first.

Jeremy granted his wish.

His hands came to hold Dan’s face, angling his head upward for a kiss. Hot lips pressed against Dan’s, and though Dan had never done something like this before, never kissed anyone, it was like he immediately knew how to do it. He let his mouth open, let Jeremy push his tongue inside, let him deepen the kiss, let him press Dan against the wall. Dan was gasping against him, pulling him closer, asking for more.

“Later,” Jeremy promised, though his leg was already between Dan’s, and Dan was thinking maybe he could have everything  _now_  if he was lucky enough.

“Please,” he whimpered, but Jeremy pulled away from him to whisper against his lips.

“Shouldn’t we at least tell your friends first? That you’re not going to be able to accompany them on the rest of their little quest?”

“ _Fine_ ,” Dan huffed, but he hummed, pleased, when Jeremy pushed his head to the side to kiss at it. Suddenly sharp teeth scraped against his skin, and Dan felt goosebumps rise all along his body at the thought of what Jeremy might do to him later. How romantic would it be if Jeremy drained him completely? If he let Dan give himself— _all_  of himself—to him? Wasn’t it just what Aphrodite would want? For Dan to die for love?

Dan whined when Jeremy pulled away from him, but he let him lead them back to wherever his friends were. Dan couldn’t help clinging to Jeremy the entire time they walked, pressing himself against his side and touching him whenever he could manage, his back and chest and arms.

“Hephaestus couldn’t have given me a better mission,” Jeremy muttered. Dan giggled in agreement.

When they arrived back in the room Dan’s friends were in, Phil and Emma broke apart quickly, as if they’d been whispering to each other. Dan couldn’t find it in himself to care, and he happily followed Jeremy through the bars into what was essentially a giant cage, pressing himself against his lover. Jeremy left the bars open behind them.

Phil managed to catch his eye from across the room, and Phil raised an eyebrow, a weird expression on his face. Dan couldn’t figure out what he wanted. He leaned heavier against Jeremy instead. Jeremy would figure this all out for him. He’d do whatever he had to with Dan’s friends so they could be together again, alone.

“Dan here’s not going to be accompanying you two for the rest of your little quest,” Jeremy said, and Dan smiled, staring up at Jeremy with as much love as he could bare. Couldn’t they hurry this up?

“He’s not?” Emma said. Her voice contained… something. As if she didn’t believe Jeremy, but was trying to sound like she did. It made Dan look at her, and she was wearing the same kind of expression that Phil had been wearing. Almost as if she wanted Dan to do something. Weird.

Dan looked away from her, letting his hand grip the back of Jeremy’s waistband for comfort.

“No,” Jeremy said. “He’s not. Isn’t that right Dan?”

Dan nodded eagerly, and Jeremy reached up a hand, touching Dan gently on the face. “You want to stay with me?” he questioned.

“Yes,” Dan sighed.

“For how long?”

“Forever.”

“Is that right?” Jeremy hummed, though as he said it he wasn’t looking at Dan—he was looking at his friends, as he slid his hand down Dan’s chest, down his stomach, let his fingers just barely inch under the waistband of his jeans…

“Yes!” Dan said, his head thrown back, and that’s when the commotion began. 

Immediately, Phil and Emma were shouting something, and they were charging forward, weapons raised and eyes blazing with anger. Dan remembered, suddenly, that Jeremy had never confiscated their weapons after capturing them, mainly because they’d been trapped in that smaller cage. And afterwards they hadn’t wanted to used them, seeing as they wouldn’t be able to escape through the bars on either end of the room without Jeremy, and more importantly, because they’d needed him to figure out which god was commanding him. Like Dan cared about any of that shit anymore.

“ _Videtur_ ,” Dan muttered, and Wit’s End appeared in his hand, its heavy weight familiar in his grip. He raised it, prepared to stop his enemies from touching his love no matter what.

“Dan!  _Don’t_!” Emma shouted. Dan swung his hammer towards her first, cursing when she managed to jump out of its way. He ignored her, then, stepping quickly to the side and using his hammer to block Phil’s sword, singing through the air towards Jeremy, who looked unconcerned.

“Back off!” Dan shouted, shoving his hammer against Phil’s weapon and sending him stumbling back a step. He backed up too, pressing his back against Jeremy’s front.

“My hero,” Jeremy murmured, loud enough for Phil and Emma to hear. His arms wrapped around Dan’s torso, his hands splaying over his chest and stomach.

“Stop  _touching him_!” Phil roared, and he threw his sword. It was coming right for Dan, going to pierce him, he was sure. He couldn’t raise his hammer in time, couldn’t block it—

The sword slammed into Jeremy’s shoulder and Jeremy roared with pain, letting go of Dan in the process.

“No!” Dan shouted, spinning around to look at Jeremy, his eyes wide with fear. Jeremy looked fine, though—just angry. His eyes betrayed how furious he actually felt, the sword clattering to the ground below him, his shoulder gushing strangely bright blood.

“Jeremy—” Dan managed, before arms were wrapping tightly around his torso and picking him up, and Dan was struggling in whoever’s grasp it was, kicking and screaming.

He saw Emma dart forward, snatching Phil’s sword off the ground while Jeremy was distracted by Dan being kidnapped by the son of Ares. “Jeremy!” Dan shouted again, but Jeremy didn’t rush forward to save him. He stayed against the wall, simply watching as Dan was carted away through the open bars, rushed through the warehouse and out of it.

Dan struggled the whole time, screamed and yelled and begged and pleaded—it only ended when something hard hit him in the head, sending him straight into a deep sleep.

—

Dan came to slowly, his head aching something fierce. He groaned, what felt like twigs and rocks digging into his side.

“Wha—?” he managed. Something was shoved into his mouth, which he chewed automatically. It made the pounding in his head lessen and he sat up shakily, blinking sleep encrusted eyes.

“Dan?”

Dan gasped, scrambling away from Emma. “Get away from me!” he cried. He looked around frantically, trying to figure out where to go, how to get back to Jeremy.

“Dan, calm down.”

“Jeremy,” Dan was murmuring. “Jeremy, where’s Jeremy?”

“Jeremy’s here,” Phil said, and Dan twisted his head, looking up at Phil standing above him.

“He is?”

“Yep,“ Phil said. Dan didn’t see Emma giving Phil the most perplexed look, wondering what the fuck he was going on about. “ _I’m_  Jeremy.”

Dan glowered. “You’re lying.”

“You think I wouldn’t possess a mere demigod for you?” Dan frowned, wondering if this could really be true. “I’m Jeremy, Dan.”

Convinced, Dan clambered to his feet, reaching out for Phil—Jeremy. “I love you,” he said earnestly.

“I know,” Jeremy answered. Dan stumbled into his arms, clinging to Jeremy and reaching up for a kiss.

He pressed his mouth to Jeremy’s, clumsily moving his lips against his. It wasn’t like earlier—he was suddenly completely aware of his mouth. He didn’t automatically know what to do like he had before, maybe because Jeremy was in a different body now?

But he clearly liked Dan just the same. His hands were running all over his body, up and down his torso, over his sides, patting over his waist, gliding up his back, under his shirt.

Jeremy sucked in a surprised breath, his hand pressed somewhere in the middle of Dan’s back. And then he  _yanked_.

Dan screamed, pain erupting through every single nerve in his body, sending fire down his spine as something sharp and metallic was ripped out of his skin. He was pressed against something warm as the thing was torn from him, but it wasn’t enough to hold Dan up. He collapsed to the ground, sobs falling uselessly from his mouth as his body shook involuntarily where he lay, something hot and wet dripping down the skin of his back.

“Oh my gods, oh my gods,” someone was saying, over and over. Through a haze of tears, Dan saw Phil throw something to the ground—silver, shiny—before he collapsed on his knees next to Dan, pressing something against his back.

Dan’s sobs had subsided into pants, the ambrosia he’d already consumed still working through his body, knitting the wound back together since the second it’d been made. The pain was fading away, leaving in its place shock and fear, a shakiness that left Dan trembling in the dirt. He reached up and wiped away the tears that’d manage to coalesce under his eyes.

“Dan? Dan, are you okay?”

Dan’s head was clearer than it’d ever been. It was like a screen had been lifted, revealing all that had been hidden from him until mere moments ago. Everything had made perfect sense to him earlier, what Jeremy was saying, the way he’d touched Dan, how convinced Dan was of being in love with him. It was terrifying, how easily he’d been completely brainwashed.

Dan managed to get to his knees, leaning heaving against Phil’s side as he breathed.

“I’m so sorry, Dan,” Emma was saying. She’d dropped down on Dan’s other side, having reaching out to touch him, one hand gripping his and the other landing on his thigh. Dan jerked away, pushing the hand off his thigh almost the second it touched him.

“We shouldn’t have made you do that; we didn’t know what he was capable of…”

“It’s okay,” Dan managed, finally saying something. It came out scratchy and thin, his voice quiet. “You didn’t know.”

“Dan…”

He cleared his throat, stumbling to his feet and dislodging himself from their hands. “He‘s working for Hephaestus. He mentioned it when I was… When we were back there,” Dan mumbled.

“So, Hephaestus stole the bow?” Emma said. Dan didn’t muster up a response. He stumbled to a tree and sank against it, crossing his arms tightly around his knees.

It was growing dark outside. He didn’t understand how. Either he’d been in there with Jeremy for much longer than it’d felt like at the time, or he’d been knocked out for longer than he’d realized.

“I’ll take first watch,” Dan announced, staring past Phil and Emma without really seeing at all.

He ended up taking all three. He couldn’t sleep, anyway.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is just a reminder that i would've listed any big ol' TWs back at the beginning and since they're not there... don't freak out at me after reading this chapter ;D

Never before had Phil felt quite like he was going to be eaten alive by guilt alone. He was sure Emma was feeling something along the same lines, as her eyes seemed to be filled with the same amount of anguish Phil was harboring. They’d never expected for a plan they’d considered so ingenious to backfire so completely, leaving Dan in an almost shell-like state. Phil was afraid if he so much as touched him, he’d break.

He and Emma were currently busy packing up the camp. Since they’d been forced to leave all their supplies behind, this meant stomping out the little fire they’d been able to make and half-heartedly covering the tracks they’d made in the ground with leaves. Dan was sitting against a tree, looking deep into the forest, appearing as if he hadn’t moved all night.

Emma murmured something about trying to find some forest berries for breakfast and Phil nodded idly. He had some golden drachmas in his pocket, along with a wad of cash he’d thought to move from his backpack before they’d entered that warehouse. It had turned out to be smart thinking, after all, seeing as none of them had their backpacks any longer.

Slowly, Phil approached Dan, afraid he’d surprise him and Dan would go sprinting off like a startled rabbit.

“Dan,” Phil said. Instead of jerking towards Phil and blinking rapidly, as if not even knowing he was there, Dan just slowly turned his head, accompanied by one long, slow blink. And then he raised his eyebrows.

Phil shrunk to the ground beside him, fiddling with the hem of his shirt for a moment before he found it in himself to speak up. “Are you going to be okay?”

“I’m fine,” Dan said easily. If he hadn’t been able to see Dan, if he were perhaps just talking to him over the phone, he might’ve believed it. But he could see the shadows under Dan’s eyes, could see his faraway look and the whites of his knuckles on his knees. Phil knew he wasn’t okay.

“Did he… Did…  _Jeremy_ … touch you?” He knew Jeremy had touched Dan, but again,  _touch_  wasn’t really what he was asking about. He felt sick to his stomach, thinking back to how Jeremy had touched Dan in that warehouse.

When Dan had first walked into the room, he’d thought he was just acting. He’d been clinging to Jeremy’s arm all love-struck-like, looking at him adoringly and playing the part completely convincingly. But then he hadn’t  _stopped_  playing the part.

Something thick and hard to swallow past rose up in Phil’s throat when he remembered Jeremy pulling Dan back against his chest, remembered him touching him all over his torso, seeing that hand dip further and further down, violating Dan all the while. Some sort of primal  _rage_  had taken over him, and before he’d known it he’d procured his sword and was charging towards the bastard with murderous intent. He’d wanted to slice his head clean off and stab his carcass over and over until he was completely unrecognizable. Instead, he’d had to just take Dan and run, leaving the monster in a state that allowed for too much breathing, in Phil’s opinion.

So yes, Phil knew Jeremy had touched Dan. But he didn’t know if he’d touched Dan  _more_ , if he’d done even worse things to him before they’d entered that room together. Gods, just thinking about it now had Phil rearing up to go. He might have to track all the way back to that warehouse to tear that fucker apart.

“No,” Dan said simply, in answer to Phil’s question.

Phil reached forward and grabbed Dan’s hand. He was almost surprised when Dan let it happen, but he accepted it gratefully, twining his fingers with Dan’s and pulling their linked hands closer towards him. “I’m sorry for letting that happen to you,” Phil said sincerely. “If you want, we can turn back and torture him until he forgets his own name.” This, somehow, cracked a smile out of Dan, who squeezed Phil’s hand momentarily.

“I’m good,” Dan said, with a little shake of his head. “We should continue on, anyway. Know where Hephaestus lives?”

Phil didn’t, in fact, know where Hephaestus lived, but he couldn’t deny that their chances were looking better now than ever. All they really needed was a good brainstorming session, probably, although they’d have to wait for Emma to return for that to happen. And so, while they waited, they talked. They shared quiet, simple words, their hands linked together the entire time. At some point, Phil had started rubbing over the back of Dan’s hand with his thumb.

During a lull in the conversation, a moment of quiet, Dan cleared his throat softly. “You know,” he said. “That was my first kiss. My one with Jeremy.”

Phil felt the breath fall out of his mouth as if a bowling ball had been swung into his stomach. Of fucking course that had to happen to Dan—how… how  _unfair_  was that!? Dan, while appearing kind of moody and closed off at first, was in reality so sweet and kind underneath. He was strong, and brave, and a bit stupid for not accepting himself completely, but he was still entirely wonderful. Dan didn’t deserve to have his first kiss stolen like that, didn’t deserve to have something that was supposed to be exciting and fun and maybe magical stolen by a monster.

“It doesn’t count,” Phil claimed, squeezing Dan’s hand tighter as he said so. “You were cursed—it doesn’t count.”

“It does,” Dan said simply. “I can… I can remember it all, so…”

“Nope,” Phil insisted, shaking his head perhaps a bit childishly. “Doesn’t count!” he sung. This cracked a smile out of Dan, along with a disbelieving shake of his head.

“If that wasn’t my first kiss—”

“It wasn’t,” Phil interrupted firmly. “First kisses are supposed to be  _good_. Maybe a bit clumsy, maybe shy and timid, but still good.”

“You’re a real romantic, huh?” Dan laughed. Phil shrugged.

“You could say so.”

“Maybe  _you_  should’ve been the son of Aphrodite,” Dan said, rolling his eyes as he did.

“Nah. I never could’ve been as pretty as you.” And then, when Dan looked up at him, his eyes wide with surprise and his cheeks tinted pink, Phil leaned in and kissed him. Dan inhaled sharply against him, shocked, but he fell right into the kiss, his lips moving eagerly against Phil’s and a shaking hand coming up to tentatively touch his jaw.

When Phil pulled away, Dan’s face was full-blown red and his lips were pink and shining. He couldn’t seem to stop blinking.

“Remember that as your first kiss instead,” Phil said simply. At the word ‘kiss’, Dan’s eyes fluttered down, his hand slipping out of Phil’s.

“Um…” he cleared his throat, his hand coming up to tug impatiently at one of his curls. “You… You probably shouldn’t have kissed me,” he said quietly.

“Why.” Phil said it flatly—it was hardly a question.

Dan shrugged.

“Because you think it’s wrong?” Phil concluded. “Because you don’t want to be gay?”

Dan’s head shot up, his eyes so wide and full of panic that one might think Dan was facing a monster instead of his sexuality. “There’s nothing wrong with being gay, Dan.”

“I never said—”

“There’s nothing wrong with  _you_  being gay.”

Dan worried his lip, looking like he didn’t believe a word Phil was saying.

“Dude, your mom’s the goddess of love. It’s probably her fault you like guys anyway.”

“You think?” Dan said disbelievingly.

“I  _know_  that she absolutely doesn’t care about whatever your sexuality is,” Phil said certainly. “She just wants you to find love.” And with that, he grabbed Dan’s chin and kissed him once more—just a peck—before standing up. “Now stop moping around. We have to go find Hephaestus.”

—

After a quick call to Camp Half-Blood to speak to Chiron (they’d had to find a stream and figure out how to create a rainbow in it to connect them through long-distance-rainbow-calling), they were fresh on their way, headed towards the closest of the seven entrances into Hephaestus’ forges. Chiron figured that Hephaestus would probably be deep in his forge working on unknown creations right about now, seeing as no important dates were coming up to force the gods to get together on Mount Olympus.

Hephaestus had different entrances to his forges that mortals could enter through. They were lucky enough to be not so far from one now, and so, after a bit of a walk and almost two hours of waiting at what appeared to be an abandoned bus stop, they caught their ride. The run-down bus stop came with an equally run-down bus, the driver of said bus matching the set as well. He grunted when they climbed aboard, raising an eyebrow when Phil plopped the wad of paper bills into his hand.

“This money won’t do.”

“What?” Phil muttered, but Emma was squinting at the man, scrutinizing him.

“You want these?” she guessed, holding a pair of golden drachmas between her fingers. The man nodded and held out a hand, curling his fingers around the gold after Emma dropped it into his palm.

“Where to?”

“Hephaestus’s forge?” Phil tried, and the man’s lip curled into a smirk, perhaps a bit higher than it should’ve gone.

“Climb aboard.”

Sometimes, being a demigod meant ignoring the fact that someone was creepy and also probably a monster in order to get to where you needed to go. And so they did, in fact, climb aboard, edging past the driver and down the rows of the strangely empty bus. Towards the back sat a man with a bowler hat pulled low over his eyes, and towards the front was a little girl all by herself, sitting cross legged and humming under her breath. Deciding to avoid both of these two (possible) evils, they settled somewhere in between the other passengers, Dan squashed in with Phil on one seat and Emma on the one beside them.

Immediately, Emma curled up sideways on her seat and went to sleep, head pressed against the window. Phil didn’t blame her. He still felt tired even despite Dan having taken all three shifts the past night. After escaping from the warehouse the previous day, they’d had to take turns carting Dan’s limp body down empty roads and stretches of forest. Phil had hit him a bit harder on the head than he’d intended to, resulting in the extra long period of Dan being as good as dead.

He didn’t know how far they’d traveled, only that the sun had steadily sank through the sky and his entire body had been aching by the end of it. When they’d finally decided to take a break, they’d had to wait another hour entirely before Dan jerked back awake, crazy again.

Sure, pretending to be Jeremy may not have been the best idea Phil had ever had, but it was the only thing he’d been able to think of at the time. He and Emma had looked at each other, bewildered and pretty freaked out, when Dan had still been in a trance when he’d woken up. Phil had assumed that after being knocked out and carted across the state, the time and distance put between Dan and Jeremy would’ve been enough to end whatever had been done to him. It was only after he’d woken up that Phil had assumed there was something physically attached to him making him act that way.

And there was no way Dan would’ve let Phil touch him if he had known he was actually himself! Phil had only just knocked him out and torn him away from the love of his life, for all he was aware of. So yes, Phil had pretended to be Jeremy. And yes, he’d kissed Dan in order to find that creepy bug-like machine embedded into his skin. But he’d done it all for Dan’s well-being—honest. He hadn’t even thought about his own, personal benefit from it until afterwards when he was trying to sleep. Mostly, he’d thought about how he wished their first kiss could’ve been normal. (And sure, he’d managed to fix that whole situation this morning, but that didn’t stop him from feeling guilty about basically taking advantage of Dan in that state the previous day.)

“Think this is a trap?” Dan murmured, glancing over at Phil and away from the window. Trees were flying past them—possibly a bit faster than they should’ve been.

“I feel like it’s too soon for us to experience another trap.”

“Awesome.” With that, Dan slouched down in his seat, letting his head rest against Phil’s shoulder, and closed his eyes. It was about time he got some sleep.

While Emma and Dan slept, Phil stayed awake, vigilant, making sure the bus driver didn’t turn into a monster with terrifying teeth or something. His arm started to go numb after a while, so carefully, he rearranged Dan a bit, letting his arm wrap around the other boy’s waist. Dan mumbled something in his sleep and turned his face into Phil’s chest with a sigh.

Suffice to say, Phil was relieved when they got to what was apparently an entrance to Hephaestus’s forge unharmed. The bus driver remained seated and driving, the bowler hat guy stayed asleep, and the little girl was maybe just that—a little girl. Still, he was thankful to get off the bus and not be surrounded by strangers anymore, so it was with relief that he woke a sleepy and compliant Dan (and a grouchy and murderous Emma).

—

“Are you sure this is the right way?” Emma’s voice echoed loudly down the tunnel, probably broadcasting their exact position. At this point, Phil couldn’t even find it in himself to be bothered by this. If Hephaestus himself came charging around a corner with a fist raised Phil would probably just breathe a sigh of relief, thankful they’d finally found him.

“No,” Dan took it upon himself to say, although he was still walking confidently forward. “It just feels like we’re going the right way.”

When they’d arrived at the beginning of the tunnel—a hole in the ground in the bathroom of a Denny’s, which they’d only found thanks to wandering and Emma’s sudden urge to pee—Dan had strode off in one direction with a shrug, saying it “felt right”. Now, they were still walking in the direction of that feeling, although Emma was growing grouchier by the minute.

“We should’ve ate at that Denny’s.”

“No one should eat at Denny’s,” Phil argued.

“ _Shh_!” Dan said suddenly, holding out a hand and stopping in his tracks. Phil complied, as did Emma, both of them listening hard. “What is that?”

It sounded like a far away clinking sound, getting closer and closer by the second. Except… it wasn’t coming from in front of them.

“Look out!” Emma hissed, throwing herself against the wall. Both Phil and Dan immediately did the same, Dan summoning his warhammer as they did, except there was nothing there.

“What exactly are we looking out  _for_?” Phil demanded.

Emma pointed, her eyes wide, and Phil followed her finger towards the ground. And there, as grotesque and creepy looking as it was embedded into Dan’s skin, was Jeremy’s invention—the little spider-like contraption Phil had pulled out of Dan’s back. Suddenly anxious it would latch back onto Dan and take control of his brain again, Phil stepped in front of him, shoving him harder against the wall and debating whether to raise a foot and stomp on the creation.

How had it managed to follow them here? Phil distinctly remembered throwing the thing aside onto the forest floor after ripping it out of Dan—surely it couldn’t have managed to scuttle all the way after them? But, apparently, it had. And it scuttled past them too, further down the hallway they’d been traveling down this entire time.

“Um…” Phil managed, staring after it.

“Let’s follow it,” Dan decided, and with that he was shoving Phil away from him and striding after the thing, his warhammer hanging threateningly at his side.

—

Hephaestus wasn’t expecting them, apparently. He must’ve thought the efforts he’d gone to to stop them would’ve been enough to prevent them from actually making it all the way to his forge, as he blinked at them in surprise when they marched righteously in after the spider-machine.

“Who’re you?”

At this, Dan actually spluttered: eyes wide, mouth open indignantly, and words tripping over themselves in a haste to get out. “Wha—gu—but— _who’re we_?! We’re the demigods you’ve been trying to kill! I’m Aphrodite’s son!”

Hephaestus actually rubbed his chin, staring at Dan scrutinizingly.

“Aphrodite has a lot of sons,” he decided.

“Dan Howell!” Dan exclaimed. “I’m Dan Howell! You stole my mom’s bow!”

“Ooooh,” Hephaestus finally said, nodding. “I did try to kill you, didn’t I?”

“You don’t remember?” Emma interrupted.

Hephaestus, an immortal, all-powerful god, shrugged. “I’m a busy guy.”

There was a pause, during which Dan, Phil, and Emma all exchanged bewildered looks.

“So… Can we have it back then?” Phil tried, after Hephaestus went back to tinkering with whatever he’d been tinkering with when they’d entered the room.

“Hmm? Oh—no. No, you can’t.”

“Well…” Dan said. “We need it back. Otherwise we’ll have to… We’ll have to… Fight you.”

“Fight a god?” Hephaestus laughed, shaking his head. Then he put down his tools and picked up his machine, releasing a glimmering, robotic butterfly into the air. It circled his head twice before coming to land in his palm—he crushed it.

Phil cocked his head, wondering what exactly Aphrodite had been hoping for them to do in this situation anyway. It was practically suicide for a demigod to try to fight a god. It was like a fly fighting a spider—hopeless.  

“Yeah,” Dan said, and Phil looked at him in surprise when Dan raised his hammer over his head, glaring towards Hephaestus. The god cocked an eyebrow and actually stood up from his work table, letting the crushed machinery from his hand fall onto the table as dust.

“And this is the bow you want?” Hephaestus said, pulling the bow out from behind his table. He held it aloft, its presence almost taunting—so close, and yet so, so far. It was golden, shining in the low light from the flickering flames scattered throughout the large cavern.

“You know it is,” Emma said lowly, likely expecting the same thing as Phil: a trick. He was tense, his weight shifted towards his toes in preparation to start sprinting, either away from the god or towards him, depending on what exactly he did. But Hephaestus just stood there.

“I was only trying to teach her a lesson,” he said idly, now gripping the bow with both hands. He plucked the string, letting it  _twang_. “Aphrodite, I mean.”

Phil shared a look with Dan.  _Backstory_? he mouthed.

“We’re married, you know that? Sure, it was arranged by Zeus or whatever, but that doesn’t make it meaningless.”

“Uh oh…” Emma whispered out of the corner of her mouth. She’d sidled a little bit away from Phil, turning her head every which way and examining the crevices of the room they were in while Hephaestus spoke.

“Aphrodite doesn’t love me. She never will. Because she’s  _shallow_ ,” while saying this, Hephaestus pointed vehemently at Dan, as if this were his fault. “She can’t stand the way I look, so instead she runs off with Ares, thinks she’s being all sneaky about it.” Phil frowned. That was pretty horrible—if it was true.

Hephaestus really did look a state, his face all misshapen and his beard alight with tiny flames (which he kept patting out), but that was just because he’d been chucked off Mount Olympus as a baby. Still, Phil wasn’t entirely sure Aphrodite would be  _that_  horrible—who was to say she wasn’t just doing this all for love? Cheating was disgraceful and disgusting, but in an arranged marriage? The goddess of  _love_  in an arranged marriage? Phil wasn’t entirely sure he could blame her, if Hephaestus wasn’t the one she was in love with.

“ _This_ ,” said Hephaestus, raising the bow into the air, “is justice.”

And just like that, it clicked.

_Burning passion and justice demands will find the bow in another’s hands._

Phil supposed the burning passion was Hephaestus—other than the tiny flames in his beard, he was clearly very strung up on Aphrodite not being true to him. And if stealing her bow was the demand justice made…

“Please,” Dan said, finally interrupting Hephaestus. The god looked at him, a mildly surprised expression on his face. Phil wondered if he’d managed to forget he was even talking to them.

Meanwhile, Dan looked all powerful and strong, like an avenging angel—though with a giant hammer instead of wings. He was standing tall, the weapon balanced somewhere above his shoulder as he glared up at the god. Phil found himself wanting to step forward, wanting to pull Dan into his arms and taste his lips once more…

“Return my mother’s bow,” he said, sounding authoritative and strong. “I know she never would’ve set out to deliberately hurt you. It’s only because of love that sh—”

“PAH!” Hephaestus spat, glowering at Dan so angrily Phil was sure lasers would shoot from his eyes. “ _Love_. I’m so  _sick_  of that word.”

“But—”

“Ever hear that saying? ‘To love is to destroy’?” Hephaestus questioned.

Before Dan could hope to answer, he pulled the drawstring of the bow. It was like magic, how an arrow appeared in his hand as he did. It didn’t feel quite like magic, however, when Hephaestus released the arrow, letting it impale itself right into Phil’s chest.


	10. Chapter 10

Dan had never experienced the entire world crumbling beneath his feet. He’d never felt it disappear out from under him or come up and crush him, never felt like he was surrounded by black holes, being pulled apart at every side. But somehow, as he watched Hephaestus loose the arrow, as he saw it buried in Phi’s chest, he knew exactly what it would feel like.

A choked, wet kind of sound bubbled up from Dan’s throat. Immediately, Phil had fallen to his knees, his chest arched weirdly, the golden arrow protruding from both sides of it. Blood bubbled up around the arrow, staining Phil’s fingers, which were pressed uselessly around the wound.

“Hnngf,” Phil said, blood spilling out of his lips. A wretched sob escaped from Dan as he stumbled a single step forward, before he was halted by what felt like lightning exploding through his leg.

“Bastard,” Dan gasped, falling to the ground and trying to ignore the arrow now buried in his own skin. Surprisingly, the pain actually dissipated, the arrow dissolving and leaving not a trace of blood behind.

The second it dissolved, Phil gasped in air, falling to his hands and knees on the ground and coughing and spluttering. Able to walk again, Dan moved those last couple of feet to get to Phil, touching him to reassure himself that he was really there, really okay.

“Now you’ll see,” Hephaestus was saying, though his voice sounded distant behind the wall of panic and relief in Dan’s mind. And where was Emma? “You’ll see how love can destroy you.”

Dan paused, his hands now pressed against Phil’s chest, whose hands had come up to hold them there, fingers shaking. He didn’t feel any differently. He’d just been shot with his mom’s love arrow and he felt exactly the same.

The same realization seemed to be making itself known in Phil’s mind as he turned to look at Dan with wide eyes. Sure, Dan was glad the arrows had been painful arrows of love and not lethal Murder Arrows, but if the love aspect was doing nothing to them then it meant  _they were already_ —

“ _What_?” Dan hissed under his breath. Even though his entire body felt like it was on the brink of explosion, a mix of surprise and fear and bewilderment twisted inside of him. Not to mention the left over shock from being  _shot_  with an arrow only to have it disappear.

It was just that, well—this  _couldn’t_  be love. Most importantly because it wasn’t  _real_. Dan had always been adamant about love being some kind of made up fairy tale, something people claimed to feel, something people wasted time and money on. Dan had never intended to fall in love—no one intended to do things they didn’t believe in. And he was almost completely sure that what he felt for Phil wasn’t love.

Sure, it made him happy when Phil picked up on why he was upset or made strides to actively cheer him up. Sure, he found it kind of hard to breathe when Phil was touching him and yet wanted to  _keep_  touching him. And yeah, he’d felt like he was on cloud nine when Phil had revoked Jeremy’s theif-age of his first kiss, replacing it with his own lips.  _Yes_ , Dan found that he loved talking to Phil, loved looking at him, and wanted to be near him always, wanted to hold his hand and kiss his cheek and protect him from his greatest fears and guide him towards his greatest desires.

But that wasn’t  _love_. All those feelings—they’d come way too fast for them to be love. They’d started coming before he’d even kissed the man, had crept up through the cracks he couldn’t cover before he was even willing to admit to himself that he was gay (which, yes, he  _was_  and it was stupid to hate himself for that—another thing that Phil had managed to convince him of). But people didn’t just fall in love that quickly. They didn’t fall in love in the span of days instead of years.

So he couldn’t possibly love Phil, just as much as Phil couldn’t love him. It defied all logic. As out there as… as…

Dan couldn’t help frowning. He’d seen a lot of “out there” things. His mom was a god for fuck’s sake—he fought monsters on the weekends and used rainbows to make house calls. Compared to all that, having a feeling or two come on a little quickly, become over-encompassing, didn’t seem too wild.

He swallowed thickly, looking at Hephaestus out of the corner of his eye. Only a few seconds had passed during this whole interaction, of him stumbling forward and touching Phil, despite his thoughts spinning about a lightyear a second. Hephaestus was looking at them expectantly, triumphantly, and Dan almost felt like he was back in that warehouse again, forced to be an actor.

Ignoring the pressing and insistent screaming in the back of his mind—something about being in love and wanting to slap Phil as much as he wanted to kiss him—Dan clambered onto Phil’s lap clumsily.

“Oh, my love!” he cried, loud and dramatic. Phil widened his eyes at him, his expressions thankfully hidden from the god thanks to Dan’s body. “ _Play along_ ,” he hissed.

“Oh—I mean,  _oh_! My heart, um, throbs for you!” Phil said loudly, fakely. And Jesus fuck, Dan definitely would’ve expected him to be better at this, considering how good he’d seemed to be back at the warehouse. Maybe he’d only been good then because the pressure wasn’t actually  _on_  him.

Still, their wretched acting apparently worked, as Hephaestus let out a booming laugh.

“Your beauty rivals that of the moon,” Dan improvised, now climbing to his feet. He held Phil’s hands as he did, maneuvering them so that he could see Hephaestus our of the corner of his eye. The god now had his arms crossed, regarding them joyfully. He’d set the bow down on his work table.

Looking red in the face, Phil cleared his throat. “But it is  _your_  beauty that rivals the moon,” he protested. Dan couldn’t help rolling his eyes, though he hoped Hephaestus hadn’t noticed it.

Finally, Dan managed to spot Emma again, seeing her form creeping somewhere behind Hephaestus. He had no idea how she’d gotten there, much less without being noticed, but he guessed that was what you got from a daughter of Hermes.

This made it all the more crucial to keep Hephaestus occupied. If he spotted Emma he could stop her or shoot her with an arrow or something. Dan figured it was just better all around if the god kept his attention on them, and so Dan pressed himself even closer to Phil, solely for the purpose of entertaining Hephaestus.

“I think about you every minute,” Dan claimed, before tucking his head against Phil’s shoulder. He wasn’t sure if this was how people normally acted after getting struck with Aphrodite’s love arrow, but if it wasn’t, then apparently Hephaestus didn’t know either.

Emma was steadily creeping closer and closer towards the god, her eyes intense and focused her body moving all quick and lithe. Phil’s hand had come up to press against Dan’s cheek, still playing along, while Hephaestus was perched on the edge of his desk, apparently having the time of his life.

Thankfully, Dan was finally able to jump away from Phil and continue to have his crisis a good distance from him when Emma snatched the giant bow off the work table and took off running.

“Come on!” she grunted, the heavy thing heaved onto her shoulders, as Hephaestus let out an indignant growl. He raised his hands, probably about to curse them all into forever being mules or some shit, but Emma yanked on the bowstring and sent a magic arrow flying towards Hephaestus’s vulnerable face. He dodged, and by the time he regained his balance, they’d slipped through the exit and were racing back through the tunnels.

It was a testament to how much Hephaestus really didn’t care when he didn’t come barreling after them. Gods were  _lazy_. They went through all this trouble getting demigods and monsters and whoeverthefuck to do their dirty work for them, but when it was up to  _them_  to do something they realized that they didn’t actually care all that much. Meaning, Hephaestus cared enough to get someone to steal Aphrodite’s bow, and he cared enough to send monsters after Dan while he was on his quest, but he didn’t really care if Aphrodite’s bow made it back to her in the end. He was pissed off  _just enough_  to inconvenience her.

Even still, they barreled right through the tunnels, afraid the god would change his mind and give chase. Dan was the first one out of the exit. He barely even noticed that they exited from somewhere different to where they’d entered, Denny’s long gone, because he was too occupied with barreling directly into something’s arms.

“Aagh!” he managed, feeling its grip tighten on him automatically. He heard Phil curse behind him, and finally he managed to look up, managed to see the grinning face of that fucking chimera staring down at him.

“Told you I’d be seeing you again,” it purred, and Dan struggled against its grip, having no interest in repeating that whole getting poisoned shit-show.

Luckily, he didn’t. One second, Dan was struggling against impossibly strong arms, and the next the chimera was going limp, a golden arrow protruding from its face. Immediately, the monster dissolved, exploding into ash and dust and leaving Dan coughing in its wake.

“Thanks,” he coughed out, turning to face Emma.

“Its voice really annoyed me,” she shrugged.

“Nice shot,” supplied another voice. Dan felt himself spin around before he’d even decided to, his eyes landing on his mother.

“Mom,” he said. Aphrodite smiled at him, and then she stepped forward, hand extended for her bow. Emma hastily thrust it towards her.

“Thank you for retrieving this,” Aphrodite said, nodding her head graciously at the three of them.

“No problem,” Phil said, having crept up to stand beside Dan. And then Aphrodite’s eyes were darting between the two of them knowingly, her mouth pulled up into a smirk. Uncomfortable, Dan crossed his arms tightly over his chest as his cheeks went red.

“What,” he said flatly.

“I’m just proud of you, is all,” she said. She even reached forward, momentarily cupping his cheek. “You believe in love now, huh?”

“I—What’re—I’m-I—” Dan stammered, his back going stiff.

“Or is it still just, what was it you said? Beauty? Lust?”

“ _Mom_.”

Aphrodite laughed, and she reached over to pat Phil on the cheek affectionately as well, before finally taking a step back. “I’ve made arrangements for you three to get home.”

With that, Dan noticed the bus rumbling a small distance from where they were. They’d popped out of a sewer drain, surrounded by grass and trees, but through the trees was a road.

“Thank you so much,” Emma said immediately, apparently the only one out of the three of them that still remembered how you were supposed to act around a god.

And finally they were on their way home. The bus driver didn’t even ask for payment from them, instead just looking kind of dazed as they boarded the bus. It seemed to be a perfectly normal mortal bus too, several people sitting two and one to a seat all up and down the aisles. They found one pair of empty seats and Dan slid in next to Phil automatically. Emma raised her eyebrows at him. Dan ignored the fact that he couldn’t stop blushing.

The ride back was mainly silent. Eventually, Dan stopped feeling so stiff and awkward and let his head rest against Phil’s shoulder. And then Phil grabbed his hand, sending little tingles of electricity all up his arm, it felt like. His hands were smooth and soft, his fingers longer than Dan’s, paler.

All in all, it was pretty… pleasant. Just watching the trees go by, feeling Phil against his side, listening to the quiet murmur of people talking throughout the bus. It was probably the most peaceful part of their journey thus far.

“We’re almost done with the prophecy,” Dan said at one point, turning his head to look at Emma as he did. “ _In the final hour let truth be told, as one’s last wish takes its hold.”_

“You’d think we’d be done by now,” she sighed, slumping down lower in her seat.

“It’s still strange that we skipped that one line,” Dan pointed out. “ _One will suffer for the cost of a bet_.” Phil stiffened underneath Dan, and Dan moved his head, afraid he was making Phil’s shoulder sore with all the leaning.

“Yeah, what was that about?” Emma pondered. They’d debated it for a few minutes, but eventually they were overcome with disinterest and tiredness, letting their heads loll and their eyes slip shut for the rest of the journey.

When Dan woke up (thanks to Phil lightly shaking him), he was almost surprised to see Camp Half-Blood. It simultaneously felt like he’d been gone forever and no time at all. Excitement fluttered in his chest—he was  _home_ , back at his favorite place in the world—and it was without thinking that he grabbed Phil’s hand to drag him off the bus, Emma following behind them, shaking her head.

Together they crested the hill and stepped through the camp’s boundaries, gazing out across the familiar sight of the fields and buildings below.

“I can’t believe we’re back,” Dan murmured, taking it all in and in and in. Emma bumped him from his other side, momentarily gripping his other hand as well.

Slowly, campers down below began to notice them walking down the hill into the camp, and then the news spread like fire, of Dan and Phil and Emma getting back from their quest. Soon campers were stood all around them, and Chiron was congratulating them, and Mr. D was standing a ways off and looking bored, although he cheersed them with his Diet Coke.

Dan didn’t even think to let go of Phil’s hand. It felt warm and perfect in his, and for a second he really felt like a son of Aphrodite. He felt like he could understand why people went out of their way to find people to hold hands with all the time. (And to kiss, once they were out of sight of all these campers and maybe hiding behind a building or in the sand by the lake.)

“You’re finally back,” someone proclaimed, voice rising over everyone else’s. Dan vaguely recognized the girl as an Ares kid, but other than that he couldn’t place a name. Phil’s fingers twitched against his.

“Looks like you did it, Phil,” said the girl. Her eyes seemed to be tracing Dan up and down, enough to make him feel uncomfortable in his own skin. Her gaze cling to where his hand was intertwined with Phil’s. Dan hardened his stare, gripping Phil’s hand just that little bit tighter. It was thanks to Phil that he knew this wasn’t wrong, that he knew he shouldn’t feel ashamed and should instead stand stall and proud. And so he held on, even when that voice in the back of his mind said to pull away.

“Amy…” Phil said, sounding cautious. His jaw was clenched, his face pinched. Dan squeezed his hand comfortingly. If he could get through this, so could Phil. He was a million times more confident than Dan was.

“Guess we should be making a trip to see Dad then, huh?” Amy continued. The atmosphere felt tense. Dan almost wanted to pull Phil away from whatever was brewing.

“Amy.”

“You won the bet, Phil,” said Amy. “Time to tell the truth, right?”

_In the final hour let truth be told._

“Congratulations! You tricked Aphrodite’s son into falling in love with you.”

Silence. Despite the warm weather, a shiver crawled down Dan’s spine. The quiet murmurs of the crowd had stopped completely. Dan wasn’t really aware of all that much, other than him yanking his hand out of Phil’s, his face so hot it hurt.

“Dan, wait—”

Dan was already squeezing himself through the crowd, humiliation and people pressing in thick from all sides. Even his eyes were hot, his vision blurry with tears that he was trying not to let fall. He heard a loud, ringing  _slap_  from somewhere behind him, followed by Emma’s voice: “ _Asshole_.”

For the second time that day, Dan felt the world crumbling beneath him.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anyone up for a 1AM update?? i'm doing my laundry rn and needed an excuse to stay awake so here i am

“A thousand beetles,” suggested Emma, sitting on the end of Dan’s bed. He shook his head, pulling his comforter higher up over his shoulder.

“Hear me out,” Emma continued. “A thousand beetles…  _in his bed_.”

Dan deigned this with a loud sniff.

“ _I_  think the beetles are a great idea,” chimed Jasmine, coming to stand by Dan’s bed. She looked down at him, her red lips pursed.

Jasmine was his half sister. Everyone in here, other than Emma, were his half siblings. And they were all looking at Dan with a modicum of pity in their eyes. Him having his heart broken wasn’t really the Aphrodite way. Her kids usually  _did_  the heart breaking, languishing in the drama and romance that came with broken hearts.

Before, his siblings had spent a lot of time trying to get him to date people, telling him it’d be way more fun than he thought. Now, they just wanted him to chipper up. At least when he wasn’t dating anyone he’d been an active part of the cabin, remembering to do his chores and clean his area and score them a billion points whenever they played capture the flag. Now he was just a depressed lump, hiding away in his cabin where the embarrassment and sorrow affected him least.

Going outside meant, at best, having to deal with everyone looking at him. He didn’t care whether it was with pity or delight (in the Ares’ cabins case), he just didn’t like the eyes on him period.

“Come on, Dan!” Matthew suddenly said, sitting up on his bed across the cabin. It took entirely too much effort to pull his eyes from the ground up to the boy. “Think of how great getting revenge would be!”

“Yeah,” agreed Jasmine. “What’s the point of getting your heart broken if you’re not going to go out of your way to ruin their life for doing it?”

“I guess,” Dan huffed. He  _did_  kind of like the idea of seeing Phil in pain or suffering or something, after all he’d done to Dan. It’d been a few days since their horrible return to camp, and Dan hadn’t left his cabin since. His siblings had been kind enough to bring him food (and not complain about him needing a shower).

“And it doesn’t have to be beetles,” Added Matthew. “You could always lure him out into the woods and have like, a monster waiting or something.”

“You guys are right,” Dan decided. He sat up for the first time in several hours, and the Aphrodite cabin members let out a cheer. Already, people were pulling out face masks and eyeliner, ready to clean him up.

“I was thinking,” said Emma, obediently tilting her head up when one of Dan’s siblings descended on her with mascara, “that maybe you could make him jealous. Have a fling with someone, or something.”

“That wouldn’t work,” Dan said immediately. “He wouldn’t  _be_  jealous because he’d just been playing me the whole… the whole…”

Tears welled up in his eyes. He eyed his pillow, considering becoming horizontal again. It was only made worse by the fact that Dan didn’t even want to kiss anyone else anyway.

It hadn’t taken him long to realize his mom’s bow had done shit. It probably didn’t work unless it was fired by Aphrodite herself, obviously. Phil very clearly didn’t love Dan, and Dan realized, with relief, that at least he’d been panicking for no reason. He really wasn’t in love with Phil, even though he’d found it in himself to accept it.

Now he could just  _not_  accept it again. He could push the idea of love far,  _far_  away from him and never touch it ever again, not even with a billion foot long stick.

“Don’t cry,” instructed Jasmine, pointing a finger at Dan and frowning severely. “Every tear you shed for that Ares bastard is a win for him.”

Dan sniffed loudly. He let Matthew attack his under-eye bags with concealer.

The whole cabin was suddenly animated again, and when Dan stood to let Matthew pick him out some clothes, a couple sisters started cleaning his bed with vigor, stripping sheets and fluffing pillows and throwing away tissues littered all over the place. Still, each and every one of them went deathly still when there was a knock on the cabin door.

They all eyed each other cautiously. No Aphrodite kid would ever knock on their own cabin door. And the only person who really ever visited them was already  _in_ there, so…

The knock came again. “…Hello?”

So many people gasped at once, outraged, that it sounded like a breeze had whooshed through the cabin. Dan’s eleven-year-old half-sister, Nandine, pulled out a knife.

“The  _audacity_ ,” Jasmine hissed, eyeing the door with anger.

“We can’t let him in,” someone else said, which garnered a flurry of agreement.

“Or…”

Everyone turned to look at Matthew, who was staring at Emma. “Well, we could try the making him jealous plan,” he whispered.

“It wouldn’t  _work_ ,” Dan said again, but Matthew just shook his head.

“He obviously feels something, seeing as he’s here right now. And the look on his face when Amy broke the news that night…”

Matthew shut up at the look on  _Dan’s_  face.

“It’s too late, anyway,” Dan finally responded. “He’s  _at_  the  _door_.”

“Well…” Matthew said, and his eyes drifted to Emma again. Dan followed his gaze, and then he gagged.

“Ew! Matthew—gross! She’s my best friend! And I’m… I’m…”

“Gay, we get it,” Jasmine said hastily. “But he has a point, I mean, well, it might work.”

Dan glanced at Emma. She shrugged. “I’m down if you are.”

With that, Dan and Emma were scrambling onto his bed.

“Wait—take your shirt off,” Emma suggest. And so, shirtless and with his best friend on his lap, Dan pulled her down to kiss him. It was nothing like kissing Phil, but that didn’t really matter. It didn’t feel  _horrible_ , it just lacked the passion that was supposed to come with it.

That didn’t matter. What  _did_  matter was Emma was a great actor, and she had her hands buried in his hair and her tongue in his mouth. Even still, Dan strained his ears for the interaction about to happen.

The door creaked open.

“Can I  _help_  you?” Jasmine sneered. She’d put on her  _I’m Aphrodite’s daughter and I’ll walk on your face if I want to_  voice.

“Um—yeah, I’m… Well, I wanted to check on Dan. He hasn’t been out of the cabin in a few days…”

“Oh!” Jasmine said, her voice dripping venom. “Yeah, he’s been…  _busy_ ,” she giggled.

Dan heard the door creak open wider, and he pulled Emma closer to him, knowing their dark corner of the cabin was now clearly visible through the open door. Emma moaned against his mouth.

“Wh—I-  _what_?” Phil managed.

“I don’t know, turns out he’s not as gay as he thought, you know? And we’ve always been, like, the sex cabin,” she giggled. This was an outright lie. Sure, Aphrodite kids sometimes slept around, but it was an explicit rule of theirs to never do it in the cabin.

“I’m—okay, I’m just gonna—I’ll—“

“Sounds good!” Jasmine said cheerily, cutting him off. She slammed the door in his face. Emma immediately slid off of Dan, wiping her mouth.

“You really let me do all the work right then,” she commented.

“I was distracted!”

“You should’ve seen his face!” someone cheered, and then the whole cabin was active again, everyone talking over each other and laughing and cheering. Dan was pulled to his feet and pampered by his siblings. Soon enough he smelled and looked great, his curls styled perfectly and his eyeliner sharp enough to kill.

He felt hungry for more revenge.

—

“This’ll be great,” Emma decided, peering around the wooden shack with Dan. They’d gotten help from a few of Hephaestus’ kids and had managed to rig up a big and elaborate trap for Phil. It helped that mostly everyone sympathized with Dan for Phil being such a dick.

Now, all they had to do was wait for Phil to walk right into the trap, where Dan would then press a button and Phil would be flung out into the lake. It wasn’t particularly evil or painful, but Dan thought it’d be nice to see Phil flying through the air, screaming, only to crash into the lake.

“All right, we’re ready,” Dan finally declared. Emma nodded and spun on the spot, making her way up towards the cabins. The plan was that she would tell Phil Dan wanted to talk to him here on the beach. And then, once Phil was in the right spot…  _Fling_!

Dan stayed crouched behind the shack, the remote in hand, as he waited for Phil. He came quickly, looking around left and right as he made his way to the beach. He looked kind of worried, a little anxious, and this only made Dan more angry. Mainly because he could recognize these expressions, knew them from the sheer amount of time he’d spent with Phil—all of it fake.

Phil stepped into range, and Dan watched him carefully, raising the button towards his finger.

“Cowardice.”

Dan gasped, falling backward and landing on his ass. He looked up, gaping at the figure above him.

“ _Ares_?” he said incredulously. The man was tall and bulky, wearing a leather jacket and a pair of sunglasses. Behind him—though Dan had no clue how he hadn’t heard him arrive on it—idled a motorcycle.

“The one and only.”

Dan felt his face twist up in anger. “Oh, this is  _such_  BULLSHIT.”

“Excuse me?”

Dan knew it was really impolite to curse in front of a god. Ares could take offense and decide to zap him into a puddle of sludge, or something. Luckily, Ares just looked kind of amused instead.

“This totally isn’t fair!” Dan exclaimed. “‘ _One’s last wish takes its hold’_ ,” he quoted. “Phil gets his wish after all the shit he did to me?!”

Ares surprised Dan with his booming laugh. He went so far as to even wipe an imaginary tear away, leaving Dan glaring at him angrily.

“‘One’s last wish’ means the  _last_  thing someone would want,” Ares said. And he held out a giant hand, barely waiting for Dan to reach out and grab it to pull him to his feet. “Your prophecy’s already over—this is just a family visit.”

“But then…”

Ares, seeing Dan still struggling, huffed. “The last wish was  _yours_ ,” he said. “You fell in love even though you didn’t want to, yada yada.”

Dan felt his face go red—with indignation,  _not_  embarrassment! “I—I didn’t—I’m  _not_ —”

“Ohoho, trust me—you are,” Ares said, cutting him off. “Your mom’s told me all about it.”

And that’s how he left Dan—his mind blown, his brain located in little bits in the sand all around him—as he walked down to talk to Phil. Dan found he couldn’t really concentrate all that easily. He was just aware that he was, apparently, in love, and he felt those stupid treacherous tears rising to his eyes once again. He watched as Ares spoke to Phil, and once the god left, hopping onto his motorcycle and driving it right over the lake and out of sight, Dan hit his hand on the button. It didn’t feel  _quite_  as good as it should have, watching Phil get flung out into the lake.

—

Dripping wet and exhausted, Phil finally stumbled back onto the sand, putting his hands on his knees and panting. He knew he probably deserved it, so he wasn’t going to complain.

He’d been trying to talk to Dan every day since they’d gotten back. He’d already chewed out Amy and the rest of the cabin, practically dragged them to hell and back with how much he’d yelled at them, but taking his anger out on them did nothing to relieve the pain of losing Dan. He just wanted a chance to explain himself, but Dan refused to see him. Not to mention the fact that his entire cabin acted like his personal body guard as well. Phil didn’t doubt that if Dan dared to venture out of his cabin, his siblings would follow him, forming a legion around him.

Well—maybe not, Phil realized. He doubted anyone else had enough of a vendetta against him right now to organize some kind of elaborate trap to fling him out into the middle of the lake. So Dan was obviously out of his cabin by now, or at least, he had been. And he’d been near—near enough to watch Phil, near enough to know when he was standing on the giant platform hidden beneath the sand, the one that had sent him flying.

Phil knew he’d really hurt Dan. What made it worse was that he’d been planning to tell him all about Amy’s dumb plan, too. He’d decided to on their bus ride home, decided to throw everything out in the open and lay himself bare, to apologize. He’d been swept up in the excitement of returning home, though. And Amy had beaten him to the punch.

He hadn’t even needed Amy’s stupid plan to meet his dad anyway. Ares had come to see him on his own. Mostly, Phil had been too overwhelmed to really form complete sentences, but Ares had told him that he was proud of him, and that the only reason he hadn’t visited sooner was because he thought Phil didn’t  _want_  to see him, what with the way he’d avoided the Ares cabin’s trips to Mount Olympus. (“My siblings wouldn’t let me come!” “The next time one of them tries to control you, punch them in the face.”)

It was after about a minute of talking to him that Phil realized he recognized him from that gas station in West, Texas. When he mentioned this, Ares just smirked, and suddenly that “father figure” that had paid for their hotel room and given them supplies made a whole lot more sense.

“I’m really proud of you, kid,” Ares had said, stepping in for the briefest, gruffest hug Phil had ever experienced. “Except for that shit that you pulled on Aphrodite’s kid—that sucked.”

“Yeah, I know… I’m gonna talk to him, though. He’s meeting me down here soon.”

Ares mouth had twisted a bit uncomfortably. “You know how to swim?”

“Yeah, why?”

“No reason.” And with that, Ares had hopped onto his motorcycle, done a cool head nod at Phil, and driven away.

With a sigh, Phil finally straightened up, having regained enough of his breath to feel ready to climb the slight slope before him. He was debating whether to try knocking on the Aphrodite cabin a second time. Gods, he really didn’t want to see Dan kissing Emma again, though. He didn’t believe for a second that Dan was straight. The only problem was he wasn’t sure if  _Dan_  believed it, if Phil’s betrayal had had him reverting back to the perfectly straight person he’d been pretending to be.

In the end, he came across Dan on accident. He’d decided to make his way to the dining hall to snag some food despite the early hour, his impromptu swim having left him starving. And there, when he walked into the hall, he spotted Dan—standing at the end of one table and grabbing food, collecting it into the pocket he’d made by holding out the hem of his t-shirt.

“Dan,” he said, more out of surprise than actual preparedness to speak to him. Dan jumped with a gasp, managing to drop the grip he’d had on his shirt, resulting in his food tumbling to the floor. Immediately, he spun around, a glare set on his face.

“As if you haven’t done enough!” he snarled. This drew the attention of his siblings—all of whom Phil hadn’t noticed until now—previously seated at the table but now all jumping to their feet, looking terrifying as they glared at Phil. The sight of them made his hands feel sweaty, made the words  _“to love is to destroy”_  echo uncomfortably around his head. Besides the Aphrodite kids, there was barely anyone in the dining hall—just a few campers dotted around, accompanied by nymphs and satyrs—but now all their attention was on Dan and Phil, standing at the end of Aphrodite’s table.

“I’m sorry,” Phil said quickly. About a hundred high-pitched and mocking “I’m sorry”s echoed from Dan’s siblings, one of whom had already drawn a knife.

“Oh, well then I suppose it’s okay,” Dan said with an exaggerated shrug, but anger still blazed in his eyes. “I can always get more food,” he added, and with that, he turned back to face the table.

“No, Dan—please, I want to talk to you.” To this, the Aphrodite entourage scoffed and imitated him again.

“And if I don’t want to talk to  _you_?”

“Please, Dan,” Phil said, having managed to step closer to him without realizing he’d done so. “Please just… just let me explain.”

Dan crossed his arms over his chest and turned to face Phil. “Fine,” he spat. “You have one minute.”

“One minute?” Phil spluttered.

A short girl behind Dan was staring hard at her watch. “Fifty-six,” she said loudly. “Fifty-five. Fifty-four.”

“For gods’ sake!” Phil muttered, before facing Dan and trying to organize his thoughts as coherently as he could.

“I love you,” he said immediately. Dan scoffed, rolling his eyes so hard Phil was worried they would roll right out of his head. “I’m serious!” Phil added. He could barely concentrate, what with the, “Forty-nine, forty-eight,” echoing around him.

“It’s true, I went on the quest with you for all the wrong reasons,” Phil said hastily. “I was desperate and, and greedy, and I’d been planning to use you in order to meet my dad.”

“Which you did,” Dan interjected. Phil ignored him.

“But I quickly realized that that wasn’t going to work. I mean, I was so forward in the beginning that I scared you off, and immediately after I realized I wished I  _hadn’t_  scared you off, because I  _liked_  you.”

Dan looked completely, entirely unimpressed. Phil tried to forge on. “I realized that you were more important to me than meeting my dad—you and your happiness and wellbeing and… and everything. And because of that I  _suffered_. I  _liked_  you and you hated me, it seemed like—”

“Yeah,” Dan said flatly.

“And it was wrong to like you because I’d only even come on the quest for like, the worst, most selfish reasons, but I couldn’t help it. Dan,  _I_  suffered for the cost of the bet—” Dan’s eyes went kind of wide here, the prophecy line slotting into place. “I suffered because I really, really liked you—loved you—and I knew I was the biggest, worst asshole on the planet and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Dan, I just—I really—”

“ZERO!” shouted a million Aphrodite kids, and, all glaring at Phil, they swept Dan out of the dining hall. Phil only just caught Dan’s eyes—wide and thoughtful, almost considering—before he was gone.

With a sigh, Phil walked alone down the steps of the dining hall, his appetite gone.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOW!!! that is the end of that, my dudes!!! it’s midnight and i’m surprisingly exhausted so i’ll try to keep this quick! i’m so thankful for all of you who’ve been reading and leaving lovely comments! (and all of those who’ll end up reading this in the future!) i really hope you enjoyed it and i can’t thank you guys enough <3 i love having you guys around and just,,, have a good day/night/whatever whenever you read this, i hope you’re happy and healthy <3

“Friends?” Dan said, standing before the son of Ares with his hand stuck out in front of him. Practically his entire cabin had begged him not to. They’d gone on and on about how Phil could’ve been lying, about how he didn’t deserve Dan, about how it would look if Dan went crawling back to him after everything. They’d kept him on Cabin Lockdown for two whole days, making sure he could do nothing but  _think_  about what he wanted to do.

“At least don’t date him right away,” Jasmine had said firmly, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. And  _duh_  Dan wasn’t going to date him right away. Phil had really hurt his feelings, he wasn’t going to let him think that a simple apology would be enough to right all his wrongs. He’d have to work for it, if he really wanted it.

“Friends?” Phil echoed, the spoon full of oatmeal still hovering somewhere between his bowl and his lips.

“Yeah,” Dan said plainly. But Phil just looked kind of delighted that Dan was even talking to him, and he was already nodding his head.

“Yeah, okay. Friends. I just—I just want to be around you. I love you.”

“And no saying that!” Dan quickly added, his eyes wide and his cheeks flushed. God, his resolve wasn’t going to be very strong if Phil went around and said shit like that.

“I’m sorry,” Phil said, but his eyes seemed to be drinking in Dan’s red cheeks, possibly cataloging it for later. “It’s just—I feel it so strongly, you know? It might slip out on accident.”

_I feel it so strongly._

This only made Dan’s face even pinker; he felt like heat was emanating from his skin. “Well… you better try,” Dan huffed, before plopping himself down in the grass across from the other boy. Phil had taken his breakfast outside, probably enjoying the nice day and the gentle breeze, and Dan had followed him, after finally shaking off his siblings (and Emma).

Phil was smiling, the corners of his lips quirked up contently, and he scooted a bit closer to Dan. He held up his bowl. “Want some?”

“I—you used that spoon,” Dan pointed out. Phil simply shrugged.

“No different than when we kissed, right?”

Gods, Dan was never going to stop blushing, was he?

—

Being friends with Phil was a lot harder than Dan would’ve thought. Or should he say, being  _just_  friends with Phil. For a son of Ares, he was pretty good at being a real fucking tease.

Obviously he knew that Dan had feelings for him—something like that didn’t just go away immediately, even after a big reveal and apparent heartbreak. It  _especially_  didn’t go away after a sincere apology. And more apologies kept coming, too. Phil made it very clear, over and over again, that he was sorry for what he’d done to Dan.

He also kept making it clear that he was still very much in love with Dan. It kept slipping out “on accident”, and Phil so clearly reveled in how flustered Dan became every time.

“That’s not fair,” Dan whined, when Phil said it as they walked around the camp, their hands occasionally bumping and sending little jolts of what felt like lightning all through Dan’s nerves. “You’re  _exploiting_  the knowledge that I like you. You  _know_  what saying…  _that_ … does to me.”

“I’m doing no such thing,” Phil immediately rebutted. “But I mean, even if I were, all’s fair in love and war, you know?” Dan was silent for a moment. “Get it? Because I love you?” Dan groaned, embarrassed.

At first, Emma was wary of Phil, having not really approved of Dan allowing this friendship to happen, but even she couldn’t deny his charm. The three of them would hang out and they’d laugh and joke and Dan would be staring at his lips again,  _fuck_!

And gods, he couldn’t stop thinking about his lips. About how they’d felt against his, pressing softly, a bit insistently. He started  _dreaming_  about his lips—on his own, on his neck, on his chest and lower and lower and  _fuck, not again, gods dammit!_  It was embarrassing, the dreams he kept having, but there were just as many innocent ones to rival it. Ones where he and Phil just cuddled, or went on adventures together, or stayed monsters in perfect sync.

Much like his lips, Dan also found himself unable to stop thinking about his hands. They’d slotted so perfectly into his, warm, a perfect weight between his own fingers.

Worst of all, Dan was pretty sure Phil knew he couldn’t stop thinking about him. He was constantly catching him staring, smiling or smirking or grinning as Dan whipped his head away, only for his gaze to soon drift right back to where it’d started.

And so yes, being just friends with Phil was very difficult indeed.

Especially when Phil insisted that friends platonically cuddled all the time. Which meant that sometimes they’d sit on Dan’s bed, or on a grassy hill, or on the sand by the lake, and Phil would just be… touching him. Arm around his shoulders, or head in his lap, or hand intertwined with Dan’s. He was sure Phil could hear his heart going a mile a minute half the time, and  _knew_  Phil could see his red face.

And gods, Phil could be really sneaky. Dan didn’t know how, but sometimes his fingers ended up brushing the bare skin of his stomach, and it sent shivers all up and down his body.

So it made sense that sometimes Dan had to get away from him, right? He had to escape the all-consuming pressure that was Phil’s presence, a pressure that had Dan sure he would break and kiss him any minute now, would crawl into his lap and hold him close.

Obviously, the easiest, most sensible place to escape from someone was the showers. So that’s where Dan was, standing under the steady stream of hot water. The shower head came out of the wall, and the rest of his modesty was assured with cheap, lime green curtains—almost see-through, but not quite.

He jumped when he heard Phil’s voice.

It wasn’t directed at him, the other boy clearly having just come into the bathroom. Dan spun on the spot, seeing through the curtain his shadowy figure standing by the door.

“I’m just gonna shower real quick. I was thinking you, me, and Dan could do something fun tonight? Maybe swim in the lake or something, I don’t know.”

“Be quick,” Emma’s voice responded. “I’m bored and I can’t find Dan.”

Phil murmured that he would, in fact, be quick, and then his footsteps were padding against the tile floor. He paused outside Dan’s stall. Dan stood stock still, curling his toes against the floor. He remembered his shoes, parked outside his shower stall… but Phil wouldn’t recognize those, would he?

“Dan? Is that you?”

 _UGH_.

“Yeah,” Dan said, resigned, and Phil laughed, stepping quickly into the shower next to his.

“Emma and I were looking for you.”

“Oh really?”

“Yeah! Who’d’ve thought you’d be here?”

Dan started to wonder how much of a coincidence this really was.

Phil was talkative. Dan had never really talked to anyone while showering before, but Phil seemed determined to do so. For some reason it left Dan kind of flustered, knowing they were having a conversation while both butt naked, only a thin, almost see-through curtain between them. And damn, it really  _was_  almost see-through. He could see the outline of Phil, scrubbing his hair, and then his arms, and chest, and…

Dan swallowed and looked away.

It didn’t mean anything to him, when a couple more people entered the bathroom, talking amongst themselves. At least, it didn’t until he tuned into their conversation.

“Think he’s in here?”

“I saw him come in earlier.” There was a pause in their conversation.

“Amy’s not paying us nearly enough for this,” one of the guys grumbled, and that name struck a familiar chord with Dan—

His eyes went wide as the curtain between his and Phil’s stalls was wrenched aside, Phil barreling into his own shower. Phil’s eyes were wide too, but for completely different reasons.

“Give me your weapon!” Phil hissed frantically.

“My… what?” Dan managed, momentarily more occupied with whatever the fuck was going on than the fact that he and Phil were standing naked together.

“Hammer! Give me your hammer!” Phil said this while shaking Dan, having stepped closer and grabbed onto his shoulders. Dan’s eyes drifted from his face, down his chest…

“Dan!”

“Right,” Dan muttered, shaking his head. And then, “ _Videtur_.” His hammer appeared, heavy and familiar in his hand, and he handed it to Phil. No one had ever held his hammer before, he realized, but Phil twisted his hands around the staff and took a step closer to the outside curtain, straining his ears for the boys who’d entered the bathroom. They must’ve been brothers of Phil’s, or some other idiots Amy had apparently hired. She must not have been very happy with the fact that he and Phil were getting on again, even after her big reveal.

Suddenly, the curtain was ripped open in front of Phil, revealing two tall, muscled boys, each holding a long knife and glaring at Phil. Dan stood stiffly in the background, wishing people would stop barging into his shower.

“Leave me alone or I’ll bash your faces in,” Phil growled, Dan’s warhammer hefted over his shoulder. The two boys exchanged a single glance, and shrugged.

“Amy was cheap anyway,” one of them muttered, and then they were gone, Phil sliding the curtain shut once again with their absence.

“Thanks,” he said, handing the hammer back to Dan.

Dan muttered something incomprehensible in reply before vanishing his weapon. It was just… well, Phil had looked  _really hot,_  naked and holding a giant fucking hammer over his head. And Dan’s face and chest were flushed, heat traveling down his spine, and Phil was still just  _standing there._

Accidentally, Dan’s eyes  _devoured_  Phil—ran over him, up and down, tracing his body with total abandon before he realized what he was  _doing_  and wrenched his eyes back up to Phil’s. Phil was smirking, having not missed a second of Dan’s inappropriate ogling, and his eyes took their own slow tour of Dan’s body, causing heat to expand evenly throughout all of him, a mix of embarrassment and arousal.

Phil took a step closer, and suddenly Dan was reaching out, was grabbing him and pulling him closer. Phil hummed, his smirk tangible against Dan’s own lips when he pulled him in for a kiss. The stream of hot water was now cascading over both of them, and almost too-gently, Phil pressed Dan against the wall, the tiles cold against his back. Dan gasped, arching his head back as Phil kissed him, as his lips trailed from the corner of his lips to his jaw, kissing lightly at first but then more firmly. It felt good.

“This okay?” Phil murmured against his skin, his breath hot and delicious on Dan’s neck.

“Mhmm,” Dan hummed, and he arched his neck further, giving Phil better access. And then Phil pressed forward, their bodies slotting together, and Dan realized how hard he was. He moaned, and Phil pushed against him again, both of them letting out little noises this time.

“Oh fuck,” Phil said intelligently, and Dan agreed with a sound low in his throat, already arching his back off the wall, pushing his hips into Phil’s.

And just like that, they were moving. Hot, panted breaths spilled between them, arms clinging to shoulders and backs as their hips snapped forward again and again, a litany of noises—gasps and whines and moans—escaping them.

“Fuck,” Dan gasped. Phil’s forehead was pressed against his shoulder, all his attention focused on the movement of his own hips. “Oh fuck!”

“Dan,” Phil moaned, and his hands anchored themselves on Dan’s hips, holding him still and pressing him tighter against himself as he moved against Dan even faster, even harder.

Dan tilted his head up, gasping wildly, barely able to breathe, as pleasure thrummed through his body, from his head to his toes, pulsing between his legs.

“Please, Phil—fuck!” His hand was tangled in Phil’s hair now, holding his face against the crook of his shoulder and neck. Phil groaned against him, and Dan reached down with his free hand, wrapping it around them together, the new touch shocking Phil into stilling. He was gasping, his breath escaping him in little puffs against Dan’s neck, as Dan slid his hand over them faster and faster, his arm aching but he was so close,  _so close…_

Phil cried out, twitching in Dan’s hand and exploding onto their stomachs, pressing himself closer to Dan as he came, his hips thrusting feebly into his hand. Dan followed right after, the pleasure becoming almost too much as he groaned, adding to the mess between them.

They stayed like that for a minute, warm and sated, pressed against each other. Finally, Phil stood up straight, his hands still idly running over Dan’s body, his arms and chest, coming up to cup his face.

“I love you,” he said, and like clockwork, Dan’s face went red.

But, “I love you too,” he answered, and Phil grinned, pulling him into a hug.

“Be my boyfriend,” Phil said into Dan’s ear. “Let me kiss you every day. Let my play with your hair. Let my hold your hand and kiss your neck and touch your skin. Let me take off your clothes…”

“We’re already naked,” Dan pointed out, and Phil laughed, pulling away from Dan a bit to look into his eyes, grinning.

“Be my boyfriend,” he said.

“Phil,” Dan said, but he was already grinning, his eyes surely lit with excitement.

“Be my boyfriend,” Phil repeated, and he pressed Dan back into the wall, pinned his hands above his head. “By my boyfriend.” And then he let go of Dan’s hands, but Dan kept them there—mostly out of shock—because Phil was sinking to his knees, looking up at Dan with a grin, his face so close to— “Be my boyfriend, Dan.”

“I was already going to say yes,” Dan squeaked, but that didn’t stop Phil from leaning forward and taking his cock into his mouth.

—

“Where have you guys  _been_?” Emma demanded, sitting up in the sand when Dan and Phil finally descended the slope to join her by the lake.

“What?” Dan said innocently.

“Phil went to take a  _quick_  shower,” Emma scoffed, glaring at Phil as she said it, “and  _you’ve_  been MIA all afternoon!”

“I was taking a shower,” Dan said. And then Emma looked at him. And her eyes widened. And her mouth gaped.

“Sisters before misters!” she cried, scrambling to her feet to fling a finger out at Dan. “You left me to boredom! Boredom vultures could’ve been picking at my bored eyes!”

“You’re being over dramatic,” Dan pointed out.

“ _You’re_  a fake friend.”

“Emma—” Phil said, but he was smiling, amused.

“And  _you_!” Emma rounded on him. “You’re a thief!”

“What?” Dan spluttered. “Emma,  _you’re_  the one that steals things!”

“You stole Dan’s innocence!” Emma claimed, flinging a hand towards Dan. “It’s gone!”

Phil just laughed, and Dan followed his lead. Emma groaned, marching forward and pulling Dan into a hug. “You happy, again?” she whispered, and he hummed in approval.

Emma pushed him away and turned to Phil. “If you ever hurt him again, I’ll kick your ass,” she threatened.

“Duly noted,” Phil answered. “And entirely unneeded.” He reached out, letting his fingers intertwine with Dan’s. Dan felt his cheeks go pink—mostly because of happiness this time.

“You guys are gonna be that sickly-sweet clingy couple, aren’t you?” Emma said forlornly.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Phil answered, his hand briefly squeezing Dan’s.

Dan thought it was a pretty fair assumption.

.

.

The End

.

.


End file.
